One of Our Pylons Is Missing

Land of the Lost
Season 2, Episode 4

Air date	September 27, 1975
Written by	Bill Keenan and Dick Morgan
Directed by	Gordon Wiles
Episode Guide
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One of Our Pylons Is Missing was the Fourth Episode of the Second Season of the Land of the Lost. It was written by Bill Keenan and Dick Morgan.

Summary

When the Marshalls learn about a missing pylon and try to find it, they find more than what they expected.

Plot

Cha-ka is wandering through the jungle carrying a picnic basket (which he could have only gotten from the Marshalls). As he sets the basket down, he is started by the arrival of Spot. Cha-ka then collects the picnic basket and flees, with Spot in pursuit.

Elsewhere, Rick and Will Marshall are exploring the jungle, apparently trying to map the locations of all the pylons, which, they have noted, seem to follow a consistent pattern in their locations. If the pattern holds true, they believe there should be one nearby. Holly soon catches up to Rick and Will, calling for Cha-ka.

Will would rather eat before completing their search for the pylon, and Rick agrees. However, Will is less than enthused when he learns that Holly prepared the lunch. Will and Holly begin to bicker as Will insults her cooking skills, but Rick breaks it up.

Meanwhile, Cha-ka continues to flee from Spot. He enters a clearing, trips over a shrub and cowers, anticipating Spot to catch him. Instead, just as Spot closes in, a circular hole opens up in the ground, and Spot falls in. The hole then vanishes, leaving the ground just as it was before. Cha-ka, who did not actually see what happened to Spot, is perplexed at first. He sees Spot's footprints leading up toward him, but they end mere feet away from his location.

Cha-ka then observes the hole reappearing and consuming Holly's picnic basket, but then vanishes again.

The Marshalls catch up with Cha-ka, who has now deduced what happened to Spot. As he attempts to explain what happened to Spot, Rick and Will conclude that the pylon they're searching for should be in this clearing, which is almost perfectly circular, as if a pylon should be located in this clearing. Rick is then able to deduce what Cha-ka is saying and while Will is convinced that Cha-ka's making this up, Rick and Holly aren't convinced.

As Cha-ka attempts to explain his story again, the hole reappears. Cha-ka, leaning over the hole to peer down the edge, falls down inside and the hole vanishes.

Rick and Will theorize that perhaps this hole is controlled by the nearest pylon, and perhaps they can open it with the pylon. Holly chooses to stay behind, in case the hole reopens and Cha-ka can be retrieved from it.

Rick and Will then enter the pylon, where their a strange throbbing sounds, which Rick likens to a drum or a heartbeat. A strange energy field shimmers into existence, projecting an image. As the image clears, they see Holly, back in the clearing where the hole appeared. Clearing dirt away from the spot where the hole appeared, Holly uncovers a clear disc. Holly then ties a rope around her waist and attempts to chip a hole into the disc with her knife.

Will attempts to warn her away from the disc, but Holly is unable to hear him. Rick and Will then leave to return to Holly, but Will notices that the image now shows only the clear disc with Holly's knife resting on it; Holly has vanished.

Holly is still hanging from her vine, but unable to exit the hole because it is sealed.

When Rick and Will arrive, they see Holly's vine extending to the hole, which has sealed up. At first, they propose to place stones on the disc to cause it to open, but Rick realizes that the stones will fall when the disc opens, possibly injuring Holly. Instead, Rick grabs a vine and ties it around himself, just as Holly did. He then proposes to step on the disc to cause it to open, lower himself into the pit and with Will's assistance, get himself and Holly out.

But before Rick can open the hole, Holly's vine snaps and she tumbles down the hole toward a blue light at the base of it. Holly then finds herself orbiting a glittering, jagged, red asteroid-like object as bright as the Sun, along with Cha-ka, Spot, and her picnic basket. There is also the sound heard by Rick and Will at the pylon, which Rick had likened to a drum or heartbeat. Rick is able to cause the hole to open, and with Will's help, he lowers himself down the hole, only to discover Holly is no longer hanging from the vine. The hole then closes, causing Rick to fall down the tunnel, just as Holly and Cha-Ka had done before him.

As all three of them are orbiting the bright red object, Rick speculates that it's the main power source for the Land of the Lost. A beam shoots out and strikes Spot, and Spot is consumed by the object. Rick advises Holly and Cha-ka to make themselves as small a target as possible. Another beam from the object shoots out towards Holly, but is deflected by her mirror. Rick then devises a plan to use his own mirror to deflect the beam back into the object itself. His plan succeeds and the heartbeat abruptly stops. The heartbeat then begins to resume, and Rick, Holly and Cha-ka are pushed out of the hole.

Will, in the meantime, has been gathering as many vines as he can in a desperate attempt to enter the hole to rescue everyone, but the hole reopens, and Rick, Holly and Cha-ka are hanging from the sides of the hole, and Will pulls them out. The hole then closes, and they explain to Will what happened. Rick suggests placing the vines inside and outside the hole as a marker for the missing pylon. Afterward, the hole reopens and Holly's picnic basket is also pushed out of the hole. Cha-Ka then makes a comment which amuses both Rick and Will, and Will translates Cha-ka's comment as: "Not even the Land of the Lost can digest your cooking."

Message

Coming up

Cast

Dinosaurs

Spot
Grumpy

Quotes

Coming Up

Trivia

The footprints which were supposed to be Spot's, which stop at the end of the hole, do not look at all like they could be Spot's. Spot is a coelophysis with three distinct toes. But the footprints which Rick identifies as Spot's are much too large and amorphous to be his.
Rick's plan to lower himself down the hole to retrieve Holly was ill-conceived. Since, as far as they knew, Holly was still hanging at the end of her vine, why not simply pull her up when the hole opened?
As they journey to the pylon, Rick and Will encounter Grumpy and avoid him, Rick observing, "If he spots us, we're in trouble." However, on their return trip to the hole, they simply start yelling for Grumpy to leave, and he does. This would seem to be out of character for both Grumpy and the Marshalls. The Marshalls usually flee from Grumpy and Grumpy generally pursues them. For a gigantic apex predator like Grumpy to be routed away from his meal, particularly by the Marshalls, seems most implausible.