Land of the Giants : Target Earth (1969)

Land of the Giants was an hour-long Americanscience fiction television program lasting two seasons beginning on September 22, 1968 and ending on March 22, 1970. The show was created and produced by Irwin Allen. Land of the Giants was the fourth of Allen's science fiction TV series. The show was aired on ABC and released by 20th Century Fox Television. The series was filmed entirely in color and ran for 51 episodes. The show starred Gary Conway and Don Marshall. Author Murray Leinster also wrote three novels in 1968 and 1969 based on the television series

Set in the then-future year of 1983, the series tells the tale of the crew and passengers of a sub-orbital transport spaceship called the Spindrift. In the pilot episode, the Spindrift is en route from Los Angeles to London via the ultra-fast route of a parabolic trajectory. Just beyond Earth's boundary with space, the Spindrift encounters a strange space storm and is transported to a mysterious planet where everything is twelve times larger than its counterpart on Earth. The Spindrift crew calls the inhabitants "the giants". Given relative proportions shown on the show, the giants are about 72 feet tall (similar to Gulliver's situation in the second part of "Gulliver's Travels", when he is in the land of Brobdingnag). Everything on their planet is built to their scale — buildings, cars, animals, etc. The Spindrift crashes on this planet and becomes inoperable. These giants are humanoid in form, and though their society resembles in some respects that of 1960s United States of America, their government is totalitarian. However few precise details are given and no governmental symbols are ever seen. The giant government has offered a reward for the capture of the tiny Earth people, presumably because of the Earth's superior technology. Episodes often have the plot of giants capturing one of the passengers or crew with the rest having to rescue him or her. The Earth people avoid capture most of the time because their spaceship is hidden in a forest outside the city. They also occasionally form alliances with individual giants to achieve some commonly beneficial purpose.

TARGET EARTH : episode 20 season 1:
A giant scientist has invented a device that is to be used as a guidance system for their space program. Unfortunately, it is flawed and has failed a critical test. Mark, going against Steve's orders, decides to help fix the problem and in return the scientist promises to help them return to Earth. However, the wife of the scientist is jealous of Mark and feels that any help he gives her husband will help to discredit him and as a result she reports what is going on to Inspector Kobick. Written by Brian Washington



LAND OF THE GIANTS : TARGET EARTH
SOBEY MARTIN  (1969)
20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION
56 MIN
USA