By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The 90s were a treasure trove of offbeat syndicated shows based on every intellectual property in the public domain, from Robin Hood to Hercules, and the less popular work of Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Of course, because it’s less popular than the world’s most famous detective, doesn’t mean it’s bad, and in fact, The Lost World is a seminal work of science fiction that helped influence Marvel’s Savage Land and every single work of fiction that includes a secret world where dinosaurs still roam. It was also a three-season syndicated show that never came close to the standard set by its source material.
Discovering The Lost World
The Lost World loosely follows the basic plot of the novel, with a group of adventurers, led by Professor Challenger, a character described by Doyle himself as “an aoe in a tuxedo,” setting sail over the South American jungle in a hot air balloon that eventually crashes, leaving them stranded on top of a plateau filled with dinosaurs and lost civilizations. Alongside the Professor are reporter Ned Malone, adventurer Lord John Roxton, Professor Summerlee, and Marguerite Knux, the financier of the expedition and a talented linguist. They are soon joined by Veronica Layton, the survivor of a previous expedition who has now become an expert at surviving in the harsh jungle, and also the focus of every single piece of marketing for the series.
Together, the explorers challenge the unknown of the plateau, which includes giant bees, giant dinosaurs, vampires, a pirate’s treasure, lizard people, and a meteor strike. The Lost World plays fast and loose with the source novel, but it’s par for the course compared to its syndicated contemporaries at the time. Every episode is essentially a standalone adventure, but that’s part of the charm of the old-school series that ends up escalating to the point where competing realities are colliding together. \
Pay-Per-View Adventure
In 1999, then The Lost World first debuted, it wasn’t in syndication, instead, it was available on DirectTV as a PPV series. It was a one-of-a-kind setup, with episodes airing on broadcast television a few weeks after the PPV airing, which included a few “blink and you’ll miss it” shots that you’d expect to see on a PPV series. That wasn’t enough to find an audience though, with the show taking off once TNT started airing episodes, doing well enough to warrant three seasons and 66 episodes in total.
The Lost World had been adapted before the 1999 series, perhaps most notably in 1925, when the original film adaptation was able to include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself introducing the film. Prior to the syndicated series, a film was made starring John Rhys-Davies as Professor Challenger and Eric McCormack as Malone, that was made so cheaply, a sequel was released the same year. None of the adaptations have had the staying power of the 1999 series that remains the definitive pop-culture take on the seminal novel.
Syndicated adventure shows of the 90s remain a strange time capsule of a lost era of television, where campy, low-budget fare would air on upstart networks as a cheap way to fill time. Hercules, Xena, even Relic Hunter, proved alongside The Lost World that to be successful, embracing the low-budget and leaning hard into the camp of re-using sets, actors, and even special effect shots, could result in a surprise hit. There’s nothing quite like them airing today and even if they were, they would never make it past the first season.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World is available for free on Tubi.