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“Land of the Giants” (1968-1970)

Sci-Fi/Action/Drama

Episodes: 51 episodes

Created by: Irwin Allen

Featuring: Gary Conway,Don Matheson,  Kurt Kasznar,Don Marshall, Stefan Arngrim, Deanna Lund, Heather Young

Capt. Steve Burton: “Let’s go!”

Dan Erickson: “Where?”

Capt. Steve Burton: “To the park on the edge of the city. Fitzhugh and the others have hit Fort Knox. They’ve spotted some giants with cameras.”

Mark Wilson: “Lenses!”

Capt. Steve Burton: “Yep, lenses… to start the solar batteries. Come on.”

“Land of the Giants” (1968-1970) was set fifteen years in the then future year 1983, the series tells the tale of the crew and passengers of a sub-orbital transport ship named Spindrift. In the pilot episode, the Spindrift is en route from Los Angeles to London, on an ultra fast sub-orbital flight. Just beyond Earth’s boundary with space, the Spindriftencounters a magnetic space storm, and is dragged through a space warp to a mysterious planet where everything is twelve times larger than on Earth, whose inhabitants the Earthlings nickname “the Giants.” The Spindrift crash-lands, and the damage renders it inoperable.

This week sees the release of an updated DVD set of the now classic but short lived “Land of the Giants” (1968-1970) while not as well remembered today as “Lost in Space” (1965-1968) or “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1964-1968), “Land of the Giants” is an entertaining show that has all of the characteristics that made Irwin Allen productions so popular. It has large scale problems, better than average special effects, fantastic story elements and is basically a lot of fun. What worked well in those previous shows probably would have worked in this one had it not been for a little film that was released  just as those previous shows were ending and this one was beginning, that being “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968).

That aside, one of the reasons that this series works so well are the special effects. They did an excellent job at making the actors appear six inches tall. Placing the camera on the floor and filming at unusual angles matched with some good editing gave the feel that the crew really was menaced by giants. They also used a lot of matte shots and double exposures to have giants appear in the same frame as little people, and made sure that the props the little people had matched the same items when giants were using them. Even today its impressive how well they were able to get the different scales to mesh almost seamlessly.

Like all of Irwin Allen’s TV shows, this one starts off really strong and goes downhill as the seasons progress. The first 12 episodes were filmed in 1967 as a midseason replacement. They weren’t needed by the network, so the debut was pushed back from January of ’68 to September of that year. These first twelve shows were easily the best of the lot. They include, along with the excellent origin story The Crash, the great episode Ghost Town.

As the first season progresses the show loses some of its luster, but they are all fun in one way or another. It is in the second season that things really start to go downhill. The budget was considerably less for the second set of shows and Heather Young (Betty) became pregnant and is missing from several shows (and only puts in brief appearances in others) but that doesn’t explain some of the bad scripts. While there were still some very solid shows, including Doomsday where a doctor plans to blow up the giant city and The Clones which is one of the best episodes of the series, the overall quality declines.

In terms of the environment the show was set in very little is known about the home planet of the Giants. This is partially because the Spindrift crew very seldom leave the area where their spaceship crashes. No name is ever established for the mysterious planet, but the inhabitants seem to know of Earth, Venus and Mars, referring to them by name in one episode. Exactly where the planet is located is also never made clear. In the episode “On a Clear Night You Can See Earth,” Captain Steve Burton (Gary Conway) claims to have seen Earth through a set of infrared goggles invented by the giants, implying that the two planets are near enough to see one from the other. The only established method by which Earth people may reach the giants’ planet is high-altitude flight, passing through what one giant calls a “dimension lock”.

Although various episodes establish that at least six other flights have landed on the planet, no episode confirms anyone ever returning to Earth. One continent, or hemisphere, is dominated by an authoritarian government which tolerates full freedoms within a capitalist system, but it does not tolerate any effort to effect political change. Exactly what the political situation is on other continents is not known, although at least one overseas land has a despotic ruler. The Air Traffic Control tells those who venture out to sea that they should turn back, that nothing beyond that sea has been explored nor is there current contact; whether this is an official government line or the truth is not known.

Culturally, the Giant society closely resembles the contemporary United States of 1968. The Earth people find themselves able to cope, and their efforts to get around are facilitated by the ubiquity of large drains leading directly from interior rooms to the pavement, in an outside wall of most buildings. The Giant government has offered a reward for the capture of the small Earth people.

In spite of the authoritarianism, there are several dissident movements at work that either help other dissenters (such as the Earth people) or are actively working to unseat the ruling party. The government has established the SID, Special Investigations Department, to deal with assorted dissidents but it also takes the lead in dealing with the Earth people. The Giant technology mostly resembles mid-20th century Earth, but inconsistently: significantly more advanced in some episodes and slightly behind in others.

The little people’s objectives are: (1) survival, by obtaining food and avoiding capture by the Giants or attacks from animals; and (2) repair of their spacecraft, so they can attempt to return to Earth. They do not achieve the second objective, as the primary systems of the craft are severely damaged. The secondary systems are insufficient to enable them to achieve the sub-orbital flight required. They are unable to use Giant technology, as it is bulky and less advanced.

They are aided in the first goal, and at least somewhat hindered in the second, by the leadership of Captain Burton. He behaves as a leader, and as protector to the passengers and crew, and his leadership has rescued them from some difficulties. But Burton also tries to keep the Giants from ever reaching Earth. In several episodes, Burton puts keeping the Giants away from Earth above the need to get his people home. At the end of those episodes, he destroys devices that would get the Spindrift back to Earth but which would probably enable the Giants to journey there too.

The show had no proper conclusion about the humans’ attempts to return to Earth, and the final episode was a universal tale that could have taken place anytime in the second season.

Episodes:

Season One:

1. The Crash: On June 12, 1983, sub-orbital passenger flight 612 (a.k.a. Spindrift), on its way from Los Angeles to London, encounters a bizarre storm and is forced to make a crash landing. Those aboard – the crew: pilot Capt. Steve Burton (Gary Conway), co-pilot Dan Erickson (Don Marshall), stewardess Betty Hamilton (Heather Young), and passengers: engineer Mark Wilson (Don Matheson), pampered city girl and jet-setter Valerie Scott (Deanna Lund), bank robber (disguised as Naval Commander) Alexander B. Fitzhugh (Kurt Kasznar), orphan boy Barry Lockridge (Stefan Arngrim) and his dog Chipper – find themselves in a mysterious land dominated by giants.
2. Ghost Town: Barry is zapped by a force field and knocked unconscious. When the others search for him, they discover an abandoned town built to human scale, but soon learn it is an elaborate model created by an old man named Akman. The man wants the little people to stay and live in his miniature village, but they are tormented by his sadistic granddaughter, who attempts to kill them after they get her into trouble.
3. Framed:Steve and Fitzhugh attempt to steal a lens from a camera they see set down by a photographer, but then witness the man murder his photo subject – a young woman who resisted his advances. A drunken hobo enters the park and passes out on a bench, giving the killer the opportunity to plant evidence and make it look like the bum committed the crime. Steve snaps a picture of the set up, but he is then presented with the problem of somehow getting the picture developed and given to the police.
4. Underground: The little people witness the hand over of an envelope between two men, but the recipient is shot by police and the letter confiscated. Soon Steve receives a radio call from someone who claims to be a pilot of another Earth ship. Suspicious of the call, Steve decides to check it out, but a curious Fitzhugh and Valerie follow him. All three are captured by the man who made the letter drop, who claims to be part of an underground political movement. He forces Steve and Fitzhugh to sneak the letter out of the police station and holds Valerie hostage until they comply.
5. Terror-Go-Round: Barry and Fitzhugh are captured by a gypsy boy named Pepi, who hands them to his uncle Carlos, a carnival owner, who plans to sell them to a circus. Steve leads an attempt to free the two captives by stealing the spark plugs from Carlos’s truck, but events lead to everyone else being captured as well. Carlos then tortures Mark to force Steve into handing over the stolen plugs, but Steve instead tries to reason with Pepi into freeing his friends.
6. The Flight Plan: The Earthlings find a man their size named Joe who is being chased by giants, but Steve protests against bringing the stranger to their camp. Joe decides to leave, but is captured by the giants and Steve along with him. The two work together to escape from a cage, but Steve feels it was too easy and suspects Joe is working with the giants. To prove his loyalty, Joe claims to remember where the giants keep fuel that could power the Spindrift. The others mobilize a plan to get it, but Steve remains suspicious.
7. Manhunt: Steve, Mark and Fitzhugh watch as a giant convict is pursued by policemen. As the man seeks a hiding place, he stumbles upon the Spindrift, and once the coast is clear runs off, with the ship tucked under his arm. With Dan, Betty, Valerie and Barry still on board, the other three can only watch in horror as the convict falls into quicksand and takes the Spindrift down with him.
8. The Trap: Mark finds a giant alarm clock and plans to use the radium from the face plate to power the Spindrift’s reactor. While he dismantles the timepiece, the area is invaded by giant scientists who set up microphones sensitive enough to detect even the minute sounds the little people make. When a scientist finds Betty and Valerie and takes them prisoner, the others come up with a plan to rescue the women and disable the scientist’s equipment.
9. The Creed: Barry begins to suffer severe abdominal pains and the others learn he has appendicitis and requires surgery. Steve decides to conduct the operation himself, but he needs medical supplies from the giants’ hospital. After sneaking into one, they are discovered by a surgeon, Dr Brulle, who kindly offers to help them – in accordance with his Hippocratic Oath to assist those in need. The doctor however, is spied upon by a greedy janitor, who phones the authorities in hopes of receiving a reward.
10. Double-Cross: Fitzhugh is knocked unconscious and captured by two giant thieves who take him back to their hideout. Barry keeps an eye on the criminals, who plan to take advantage of Fitzhugh’s small size in their next job, stealing a priceless ruby. When the thieves go to bed, Barry gets to Fitzhugh, but finds the man has lost his memory and believes he works with the giants. Fitzhugh then forces Barry to help in the jewel heist, as the boy can fit inside the museum door’s keyhole and open the lock from the inside.
11. The Weird World: The Earthlings find a miniaturized tape recorder that leads to a crazed human astronaut named Major Kagen, who thinks they are spies for the giants. After they convince Kagen they are on his side, he informs them that his spaceship landed intact but was taken by the giants to a research center. The Earthlings set out to break into the center and find the ship, in the hope it will be their ticket home.
12. The Golden Cage: Mark finds a beautiful human woman trapped inside a jar and becomes obsessed with saving her, but Steve feels she is an obvious trap set by the giants. Mark frees her anyway and learns her name is Marna – the daughter of a former colleague whose spaceship disappeared 15 years earlier. Marna takes Mark to see her miniaturized home, and tries to convince him to live with her and the giants who have cared for her since childhood. Mark however, rejects the idea of living like a lab rat in a doll’s house, and leaves Marna heartbroken. Elsewhere, struggling with hunger, Fitzhugh tries to bag a giant turkey.
13. The Lost Ones: Steve, Mark, Betty and Valerie are captured by four hostile Earth teenagers, led by a violent hoodlum named Nick. The delinquents explain they are all that remains of a space flight in which 22 others lost their lives two years earlier. Nick accuses them of being spies for the giants, and blames them for the capture of two of his gang. When Nick’s younger brother, Joey, is captured in a giant’s animal trap, Nick threatens to harm Betty and Valerie unless Steve and the others rescue him.
14. Brainwash:While hiding in a drain pipe, Steve and Fitzhugh find a room full of electronic equipment on a human scale, which they learn is from a lost American space flight. When Steve tries to radio Earth, the signal is intercepted by the giants, who attempt to trace the transmitter station. Steve is captured and the giants use a mind-controlling foam on him, whereupon he reveals the location of the transmitter. Mark rescues Steve, and once he recovers from the drug they try to destroy the equipment room before the giants can dig it up.
15. The Bounty Hunter: The Earthlings are on high alert when the giants begin combing the forest for little people – even hanging reward posters for their capture. In a desperate attempt to get the Spindrift flightworthy, Steve and Mark raid a camper’s tent for anything useful. When a giant handgun is found, Mark believes he can rig it into a cannon that will defend the Spindrift camp, but Steve thinks the idea is crazy.
16. On a Clear Night You Can See Earth: Taking advantage of the fact that the giants have poor night vision, the humans sneak into a lab after disabling the lights, but a scientist spots them with a pair of experimental infrared goggles. Steve plans to destroy the prototype goggles before more can be made, but during the attempt he and Fitzhugh are captured by the scientist. When Steve claims he can see Earth through the goggles, he piques the scientist’s interest, then offers Mark’s help in making the goggles more powerful. Fitzhugh is allowed to leave, ostensibly to fetch Mark, but actually to convey a message from Steve ordering the others to blow up the lab with him in it.
17. Deadly Lodestone: Inspector Kobick, an officer with the police’s Special Investigations Department (SID), develops a way to track the humans using a scanner which detects a metal unique to Earth. Steve has everyone get rid of all articles containing the metal, but Dan has a surgical pin in his leg made of the unique material. Steve believes the group’s only chance to evade capture is for the pin to be surgically removed, so he seeks out Dr Brulle – the giant surgeon who saved Barry’s life previously – but the doctor is in prison, and the only chance to reach him lies in contacting his nurse, who’s real loyalty may be to Kobick.
18. Night of Thrombeldinbar: Fitzhugh is captured by two orphan boys who believe he is “Thrombeldinbar” – a magical elf celebrated like the Easter Bunny, who grants wishes to children. Steve and Mark come to his rescue, but Fitzhugh realizes the boys are lonely and stays to entertain them. Their wish is to find a loving home, but tradition has it that Thrombeldinbar can only grant their wish if he is burned in a fire at moonrise. A panicked Fitzhugh faces being burned alive. He is saved for the moment by an organ grinder, who is hunting the little people for the reward now offered for them, but the demented man captures the orphans and threatens to harm them if they won’t reveal where more Earthlings can be found.
19. Seven Little Indians: Inspector Kobick returns, and this time he captures Barry’s dog, Chipper. The next day the humans learn that Chipper is being exhibited at a local zoo as “The World’s Smallest Dog”. Barry runs off to save his dog, and falls into Inspector Kobick’s trap along with Fitzhugh and Valerie. Steve comes up with a plan to slip an animal tranquilizer to the guard, but the attempt is thwarted when Kobick is tipped off by Grotius, a dishonest handyman who is trying to extort a reward for the capture of the Earthlings.
20. Target: Earth: Steve, Mark and Dan discover a lab where a giant scientist is working on a guidance system which could get a spacecraft to Earth. Overhearing the scientist, Dr Franzen, say he is working to peacefully explore the solar system, Mark proposes a deal: to perfect the device in exchange for a ride back to Earth. The scientist accepts the offer, but his wife Altha secretly tips off Inspector Kobick.
21. Genius at Work: Barry and Fitzhugh encounter a boy genius named Jodar, who has developed a super-growth serum. After Chipper eats it and grows to giant size, Fitzhugh tries it and grows as well. Once giant sized, Fitzhugh goes around intimidating every giant he meets, until he’s arrested by the police. When he is found with little people’s money in his pocket, he is brought to Inspector Kobick. Meanwhile, Steve locates Jodar and convinces him to work on an antidote to the serum, which isn’t yet finalised. Pressed for time, Steve consumes the growth formula, and poses as Fitzhugh’s attorney to try to get him released, but Kobick’s suspicions become roused when he doesn’t buy Steve’s cover story.
22. Return of Inidu: Seeking shelter from a storm, the little people enter a haunted house, but soon realize the green phantoms they see are illusions, created by a magician named Inidu, who was only trying to drive off a pair of trespassing boys. Inidu befriends the Earthlings and promises not to turn them in, for he too is wanted by the police. Meanwhile, the boys’ tale of their ghostly encounter makes the radio news on a local station, which brings Inidu’s former assistant, Enog, to the house. When Enog arrives, he tries to poison his old mentor in order to steal a notebook containing the secrets to the magician’s tricks.
23. Rescue: While running from an SID officer, the Earthlings are spotted by two giant children, who, whilst chasing them, fall down a concealled well and become trapped. The giants try to dig them out, but a cave-in thwarts their efforts. After Inspector Kobick captures Steve and Dan, Valerie and Betty go to the parents of the children and offer to help them if they will convince Kobick to release their friends. After some prodding, Kobick puts duty aside and allows Steve and Dan to help in the rescue. In the meantime, Mark and Fitzhugh find another way into the well, and try to slip their friends out past Kobick.
24. Sabotage: Steve rescues Mark and Dan from a ruthless interrogator named Bogar who believes the Earthlings pose a threat to the giant society. Steve then learns a government official named Senator Obek has sympathy for the little people and he reports Bogar’s activities. The situation becomes dire when the Earthlings learn Bogar’s accomplice has blown up a bridge and planted evidence to make it look like the little people did it.
25. Shell Game: While down at the waterfront looking for shrimp, Steve, Valerie and Betty hide in a conch shell from a deaf boy named Dal, but he eventually finds them. His parents, facing financial problems, decide to turn the Earthlings in for the reward, and with the boy’s keen eye they follow the little people’s footprints back to the Spindrift and capture the ship as well. Mark learns that the giants’ hearing aids don’t work for the boy, but, using the Earthlings’ more advanced technology, Mark creates one that does work, and tries to convince the parents that they could sell the technology to make money instead of turning the little people over to the police.
26. The Chase: Betty is held captive by Inspector Kobick who cuts a deal with Steve to locate a counterfeiting ring in exchange for her life. To find the criminals, Kobick puts the Earthlings into the city’s sewer system, to follow a trail of luminous ink used in printing the fake money. But the gang is tipped off, and tries to prevent this by flooding the drains with pesticide. Meanwhile, Dan, Valerie and Fitzhugh slip into Kobick’s office to rescue Betty, who is held within an inescapable force field.Note: Series regular Stefan Arngrim does not appear in this episode.

Season Two:

1. The Mechanical Man: The Earthlings witness a giant who goes berserk, trashes a drugstore, and murders a security guard with his bare hands. They learn the man is really a malfunctioning android, created by a scientist named Gorn, who manages to capture Mark and Fitzhugh. When Gorn learns Mark is an engineer, he makes a deal with him to figure out what is wrong with his robot in exchange for his freedom. Mark gets the machine working, but when Gorn isn’t forthcoming with his end of the deal, Steve and the others climb inside the robot and hijack it.
2. Six Hours to Live: The litttle people overhear an anxious farmer named Cass admit to committing a murder that an innocent man named Reed is to be executed for. Steve decides to help Reed, and contacts a reporter named Simmons who is covering the execution. In exchange for the story of his career, Simmons sneaks Steve and Dan into Reed’s cell and the two help him escape. Meanwhile the other Earthlings try to delay Cass and his wife, who are trying to sneak out of town with a stash of money they stole during the crime. When Reed shows up to confront them, they think he is a ghost, and Cass confesses to the murder and theft while being secretly tape recorded.
3. The Inside Rail: While at a horseracing track, Fitzhugh finds a winning ticket on the ground and makes a deal with a giant racetrack bum named Moley, to split the winnings 50/50. Moley cashes the ticket, but a security guard becomes suspicious and arrests him. Moley leads the guard back to Fitzhugh who manages to get away, but Mark, Valerie and Betty are captured by a second guard who secures them in a desk drawer. While Steve and Dan attempt to rescue the others, Fitzhugh discovers a giant thug who is trying to drug the favourite, Mannequin, so he will lose in the next race.
4. Deadly Pawn: An insane man named Kronig captures the little people, but proposes a deal with them – play him at chess and if they win, they go free; lose and he turns them over to the SID. The Earthlings choose Barry, their strongest player and a junior state chess champion on Earth. An enraged Kronig believes the little people are being disrespectful by having a boy oppose him, and he has the other humans tied to the chess pieces. If their piece is captured, they will fall through the squares of the mechanical chess table and down into a blast furnace. Dr Lalor, Kronig’s therapist, protests against Kronig’s cruelty, so Kronig has him locked in the closet. Steve and Dan escape from the chessboard and try to release Lalor. Meanwhile, Barry starts to lose the game, putting the lives of those still on the board in jeopardy.
5. The Unsuspected: Steve is exposed to spores from a poisonous mushroom and he becomes violently paranoid. Thinking the others are trying to turn him over to the SID, he lures them away one by one from the ship and ties them up inside a vent. Meanwhile, Inspector Kobick, knowing Steve has been exposed to the mushroom, expects the human to turn on his friends. He radios Steve with a deal to turn in those he captured and he’ll help him get back to Earth. When Dan comes in contact with the mushroom, he experiences its hallucinatory effects and realizes Steve has been drugged.
6. Giants and All That Jazz: Fitzhugh, Barry and Valerie check out a music club and witness a man named Hanley rough up a down-on-his-luck trumpet player named Biff Bowers who owes him money. Later Bowers manages to capture Valerie and Barry, and knowing they are worth a hefty reward, he calls the SID. Unbeknown to Biff, Mark has rigged the phone and Steve intercepts the call to SID and buys the others some time where Dan tries a different approach – make Bowers a star overnight by teaching him Earth’s jazz, in exchange for letting his companions go.
7. Collector’s Item: Valerie becomes the centerpiece of a golden music box when a man named Garak captures her and puts her inside it as a dancing figurine. Garak then presents the box as a birthday gift to his wealthy toy-collecting uncle, but Steve and Mark soon learn Garak stands to inherit a fortune from his uncle and the box is really a bomb triggered to go off if someone opens the cage door. While Dan and Fitzhugh try to rescue Valerie, Steve and Mark warn Garak’s wife that her husband is trying to commit a murder.
8. Every Dog Needs a Boy: Chipper is injured when the bark from a giant dog sends him tumbling into a wall and Barry risks capture by taking him to a vet at a pet store. Valerie follows and helps Barry get Chipper into the vet’s office, but they are discovered by the vet’s assistant Ben who does what he can to help the tiny dog. Soon the shop owner’s bullying son Carl arrives, and learns little people are hiding there and tries to capture them. Later, Carl loses a valuable movie dog named King and Ben goes to search for it leaving Carl to snoop around and find Barry and Valerie’s hiding spot.
9. Chamber of Fear: Fitzhugh is captured by a wax sculptor named Deenar who is partner to a jewel thief named Jolo. When Jolo orders the artist to cut up a large diamond into ten small pieces, he refuses believing three pieces would be worth more, and Jolo angrily ends their partnership. When Steve and Dan come to rescue Fitzhugh, they offer Deenar a deal to sneak the diamond away from Jolo in exchange for the release of their friend. Deenar agrees but Steve sends Mark and Valerie to fetch the diamond while he and Dan try to release Fitzhugh. The rescue becomes more difficult when they learn Fitzhugh is being guarded by a fierce dog.
10. The Clones: A giant scientist abducts some of the little people and begins making clones of them. After the duplicates of Valerie and Barry sabotage the ship and try to kill the others, Steve, Mark and Dan try to rescue the originals who are being held in a lab. The near-perfect clones have a flaw however, as they become violent and then die within hours of being created. They can also be identified by dark spots on their skin, but the scientist has a special plan for Dan when he realizes the spots are invisible on Dan’s dark skin and his clone will make a better spy.
11. Comeback: Steve, Mark, Valerie and Fitzhugh talk a washed up movie star named Egor out of committing suicide, but he repays their kindness by putting them in a shoebox and trying to sell them to a movie studio. Unfortunately, Egor is rejected at every turn until he visits a B-movie studio whose greedy producer, Manfred, gets an idea for a movie about living dolls. Meanwhile, Dan and Barry try to rescue the others from the set before Manfred makes them the hapless victims of gory death scenes that are not in the script.
12. A Place Called Earth: Two humans, Olds and Fielder, travel from the year 5477 to observe Earth in the past, but they accidentally arrive on the giants’ planet. They show up at the Earthlings’ camp just as a giant stumbles upon the Spindrift, but the futuristic humans kill the intruder and disintegrate the body with an amulet weapon before anyone realizes what happened. Steve quickly becomes suspicious of their new guests and learns they are renegades who originally planned to kill all humans on Earth and leaving those few they captured to repopulate the future Earth with humans they can easily control.
13. Land of the Lost: Steve, Mark, Valerie and Barry become caught in a toy balloon and end up pulled by a strange force over a thousand miles across a violent ocean to a land ruled by a ruthless dictator named Titus. The despot, however, has no knowledge of the land across the ocean and thinks all the inhabitants are as small as the little people, but when Steve explains that giants live there as well, Titus demands he bring back proof of their existence and technology.
14. Home Sweet Home: The humans discover a space pod left behind by the time traveling visitors from the year 5477. While they investigate the craft, two giant park rangers appear and try to capture them. Steve and Fitzhugh manage to escape in the pod but the ship is on a preflight course to coordinates unknown. After escaping the giants, Mark tries to decipher the pod’s operation manual and help Steve navigate back. Soon however, the pod is caught in an energy storm that takes Steve and Fitzhugh back to a small New England town on Earth – but stuck 75 years in the past.
15. Our Man O’Reilly: A bumbling giant named O’Reilly stumbles upon the little people, but he thinks they are leprechauns and offers to serve them. Steve thinks the giant could be dangerous, but Mark believes he could be useful and has Fitzhugh guide him along to fetch various materials and tools needed to fix the Spindrift. Meanwhile, a shady police detective named Krenko sticks his nose into O’Reilly’s business and disrupts the Earthling’s repair efforts. Secretly however, Krenko plots to frame O’Reilly in a jewelry theft.
16. Nightmare: A giant engineer named Andre helps the little people develop a new power source – the “Delta Device” – which could power the Spindrift, but during a test the Earthlings are exposed to a burst of radiation. Afterward, they realize they have become invisible to the giants when Andre’s superior, Dr. Berger, comes to the Spindrift campsite yet is not able see the humans right under his nose. As the weird effect begins to grow out of control, it creates strange warps in space and time where the giants become invisible to the humans and Steve becomes trapped in a nightmarish dimension.
17. Pay the Pipe: A mysterious flute player lures Dan, Valerie, Betty and Fitzhugh into a cage with his mesmerizing music. The man claims to be not only the fabled Pied Piper of Hamelin, but also a being capable of traveling between worlds and changing his size and appearance. The Piper takes the captured humans to a giant Senator, but the politician refuses to pay him for the capture. As revenge, the Piper tries to lure the Senator’s young son away. Mark devises a way to cancel out the Piper’s music by recording the music and playing it backwards. The Piper comes up with another scheme, and reduced to the size of the humans, he offers Fitzhugh a ride back to Earth if he disables the tape recorder.
18. The Secret City of Limbo: After Mark and Valerie witness a pair of giant archeologists get attacked by a man with a laser gun, they hide in hole where they find a teleporter that sends them to an underground city called Limbo which is populated by giants unknown to those living on the surface. Their leader Taru, explains that if the archeologists discover Limbo, they will start a war which the more advanced underground giants will surely win. Taru wishes to avoid war, but his rival, General Aza, is trying to start one and had sent the gunman to kill the scientists. With the other’s help, Mark comes up with a plan to contaminate the soil at the dig site with an explosive chemical that would prevent the surface giants from blasting and discovering the hidden city.
19. Panic: Betty and Fitzhugh are caught in a paralyzing trap and taken away by a SID officer to an interrogator named Marad. Suddenly, they are teleported away to the home of Professor Kirmus who has developed a matter transport device capable of sending anything anywhere – including the little people back to Earth. Unfortunately Kirmus’s housekeeper is really a SID operative and she turns Kirmus in to the authorities, but Marad is really after the secrets of the teleport machine. Meanwhile, Steve and the other Earthlings search for a missing component of the device hidden by Kirmus, who promises them a trip back home.
20. The Deadly Dart: Two SID agents turn up dead, killed by poison injected at the ankle, and at the crime scene the police find the footprints of little people and a blowgun with Mark’s initials inscribed on it. Back at the Spindrift, the humans learn a giant reporter named Bertha Fry is spreading accusations that the Earthlings are murderers and should be exterminated. Fitzhugh openly accuses Mark of being the killer and when more evidence mounts against him, Mark mysteriously disappears. When a giant lab is blown up and another giant is murdered, Steve races to locate Mark who he suspects is really being set up by the reporter who wants her “big story”.
21. Doomsday: The little people help a giant man named Kamber who has been shot by police, but he refuses medical help and has the humans contact a woman named Dr. North instead. Once North arrives, it is revealed she and Kamber are part of terrorist plot to blow up half-a-million people. When she learns that the Earthlings have overheard the plan, she tries to kill them, but the humans manage to escape, with Fitzhugh injuring his leg. Betty and Valerie stay with Fitzhugh, while the others try figure out a clue left behind by Kamber that could lead to the location of the bombs. However, Inspector Kobick captures Betty and Fitzhugh, and doesn’t buy their story of the terror plot, leaving Steve and the others to foil the plan themselves.
22. A Small War: The little people encounter a giant boy named Alek who has come to play war with another unseen opponent named Falco. Armed with several mechanical army men, and a remote controlled jeep, tank and airplane, Alek launches an assault upon the little people who he thinks are Falco’s mechanical toys. Unfortunately for the Earthlings, at their scale, the war toys are just as lethal as the real things and must be stopped. Steve tries to reason with the boy, but is unsuccessful; and after Alek “bombs” the Spindrift camp with stones from the plane, a fed up Mark attempts to stop the child even if it means having to harm him.
23. The Marionettes: After a gorilla escapes from a circus and captures Valerie, the little people help guide a puppeteer named Goalby in finding the beast. Although Valerie is freed from the ape, Betty becomes caught in an animal trap and Goalby helps release her too. In doing so, he injures his hand and cannot perform. To repay him, Betty and Fitzhugh decide to be Goalby’s marionettes until his hand heals. Meanwhile, Dan and Valerie are captured by Brady, the circus master; and he quickly realizes Goalby’s puppet show is a farce. Instead of firing the puppeteer, Brady schemes to make a fortune off the realistic puppet act and forces Goalby to maintain the illusion. Goalby instead, tries to help Steve and Mark rescue their friends.
24. Wild Journey: Steve and Dan encounter two time-travelling people their size, Throg and Berna, who escape a SID agent by using an amazing device called the STM – “Space-Time Manipulator”. Throg demonstrates the abilities of the STM which can send anyone, to anywhere, to any time. Steve believes he could use the device to return to Earth and change everyone’s current predicament by avoiding taking off for the fateful flight of the Spindrift. Steve manages to gets a hold of the device and he and Dan teleport back to Los Angeles spaceport on Earth just before the flight. Throg and Berna soon arrive and angrily explain that it is forbidden to change history, but Steve and Dan do not want to go back to the giant world so easily.
25. Graveyard of Fools: Steve, Dan, Valerie and Fitzhugh are caught by a mad scientist named Melzac who puts them in a model plane and flies it to the “Graveyard of Fools” – an uncharted land on the giants’ world that no one has ever returned from. During the flight, the plane enters a mysterious vortex and vanishes along with the little ones who find themselves in a bizarre world under the control of Melzac’s twin brother Bryk. Meanwhile, Mark is caught by Melzac who reveals he and his brother’s plans to fix an alien device, the “servo actuator”, which is causing ripples in space and time and requires the use of the little ones to get inside it and conduct repairs.