The Lost World

I have discovered an unbelievably awful great new TV series! This kind of thing is routine for those of you who actually own a TV and get cable, I know, but I have to get my TV delivered on shiny disks by the nice mailman, so it's different for me. Lately, when confronted with my Blockbuster Online queue, I've been succumbing to that "I've watched everything I ever need or want to watch" feeling, so I've been kind of desperately typing in random letters to see if anything interesting pops up.

Well, The Lost World popped up and I have been glued to the screen, even though Blockbuster sent me the wrong disc (in a kind of weirdly ironic move, they sent me the first disc of Lost, which I have already seen, and which is one of the reasons I still have Blockbuster, since I'm not so patiently awaiting season 2) and, at any rate, I had to start Lost World on Disc 2. No matter! I picked up the basic idea quite quickly! The Lost World is so awful that it's great. Or so great that it's awful; I can't quite decide, but I definitely want to move to Canada or Australia (it's a co-production; go figure) and become a writer for the show. Writing for the Lost World would be GREAT, because there are no rules. It's sort of the TV corollary to my long held career dream of writing for the Weekly World News - no restrictions, anything goes, wink wink, nudge nudge. Yeah.

The Lost World is the story of the adventures of a plucky band of heroes who have somehow landed in the Lost World, which apparently is part of New Zealand, but, like the Hotel California, cannot be escaped. The cast includes The Old Scientific Smart Doctor Guy, The Older Leader Guy, The Macho Adventurer Guy, The Sensitive Young Writer Guy, The Bitchy Babe with The Heart of Gold and The Ingenue Who Also Happens To Be Quite Handy With Edged Weapons. The ingenue, by the way, wears a pleather bikini type garment that has to be seen to be believed and was apparently raised wild in the jungle, which is why, when she swings across the river on a vine in the opening credits, the narrator breathlessly refers to her as An Untamed Beauty. Yes. How can you not love a show that actually uses the words Untamed Beauty unironically? Even more to the point, how can you not love a show that, in the four or five episodes I have now watched, has included the following elements:
1. Evil blonde queen of dusky face painted savages
2. Hallucinogenic fungus
3. Aztec types in bad wigs, pleather T-shirts & skorts performing human sacrifice
4. Vampires who have come to the jungle complete with their neo gothic castle surrounded by creepy mists
5. Wife buying savages
6. Missing links
7. Ape Men who like to eat human flesh
8. Druids.
Yes, I did say druids. Naturally there are druids! Why wouldn't there be druids? But I have left out the best, the most awesome part of all: in every episode they fight dinosaurs. Every single episode includes dinosaur death; there are tyrannosaurus rexes, velociraptors, scary things with long pointy mouths that look kind of like chainsaws, and dozens more. The Lost World is absolutely crawling with dinosaurs, and most of them want your blood. Every so often the adventurers take to the air in their balloon (no, no they can't leave the Lost World via balloon, silly. Don't ask why. They just can't.) providing us with great, if sort of poor man's Jurassic Park-esque, views of brontosauruses and stegosauruses and distant pterodactyls. It's awesome. I have long felt that all TV shows should be required to include at least one scene of dinosaur battle (it would improve the HELL out of the McNeil/Lehrer report, you know it would) and at last, I have found a show that agrees with me. I am happy now. I am content. I'll be in the living room, watching Untamed Beauty fight off Velociraptor.