Episode 29: Split Personality

[Professor]

“The Musician” and “Split Personality” are an interesting pair, especially considered back to back. Both feature something seen one time only in the series: in “The Musician,” it’s the Builder, and in “Split Personality,” it’s a parallel set of Marshalls in an alternate reality. These episodes have each provided a disproportionate amount of fodder among fans for discussion of the way things work in the Land of the Lost as well as for explanation of difficult-to-explain things and events. As we’ve discussed, “The Musician” gives some people thoughts about how the origins of the Land of the Lost and its technology. “Split Personality” likewise has been used to explain the “Circle” paradox as well as the mysterious “Holly Don’t” of “The Pylon Express.”

What is it about this pair of episodes, placed so close to the end of the second season of the series, that has so captured the imaginations of the fans? Although the stories, both of which are deeply embedded in the science fiction genre, are nothing alike, they do have something in common: they bring something very powerful in from the outside. In “The Musician,” it’s a new, powerful being, who is established as a dormant resident; in “Split Personality,” it’s the existence of and ability to interact with a parallel universe. How tempting it has been, for better or for worse, to ascribe otherwise poorly explained occurrences to these singular phenomena; you all know what I’m talking about. The fact is, however similar these two interesting episodes are in terms of their impact, watching them back to back reveals that “Split Personality” is the lesser. In addition to being unbelievably poorly edited, the story is founded to some extent in either a gross oversimplification or, I’m more inclined to believe, an outright misunderstanding of physical principles.

Let’s talk about some of the good things first. The scenes concerning Grumpy during and after the initial earthquake are well-executed, making use of a new set. They give us false hope that Grumpy is gone, foreshadowing the earthquake-driven changes to the dinosaur cast in Season Three. The parallel Holly makes the Marshalls think of the Sleestak trick way back in “Album”; that’s a clever connection on Will’s part as well as a great piece of continuity. Ditto for the idea that earthquakes might be connected with pylons, which isn’t really further addressed – I like the open-ended hypothesizing. Having the chamber with in the cave rotate 90 degrees and having the matrix table embedded in the wall, correcting itself by rotating 90 degrees after Will accomplishes his task constitutes a very effective visual representation of the parallel worlds “grinding against each other.” Finally, the whole idea of interacting with counterparts in a parallel universe is exciting and appealing.

There is, however, a lot of really sloppy editing and some tremendous plot difficulties that interfere with the feel and the flow of the story. Here are four editing problems. 1) When Will first sees this person, who we later learn is in serious peril, she’s grinning from ear to ear. Take yourself back to a time before you’d ever seen this; I bet that first off, unlike the Marshalls, you recognized her right away, and second, you never expected her subsequent troubled mood. 2) Upon leaving Holly’s body after telling Will and Dad to help parallel Will and Dad, parallel Holly disappears, and the show goes to a commercial break. Immediately after the break, parallel Holly is floating right overhead; this is very jarring, though in fairness it’s more so in the absence of that commercial break. 3) The whole reason she needs to get into Holly’s body is to be able to talk; not only does it not look remotely like Holly is talking, but at the end, she is continuing to talk for several seconds after leaving Holly’s body. 4) Dad starts talking about a “green wall” on the way to the cave of interest, but no one’s said anything about a “green wall.” Here are four plot problems. 1) Where is parallel Holly? She’s supposedly with parallel Will and Dad, but she’s not only in a different form from them, she’s not even with them. She claims to be “halfway through,” apparently mixed in with the rocks; we can see this for the others, but not for her. What is the difference between parallel Holly’s predicament and that of the others? 2) How does parallel Holly move around? 3) How can parallel Holly both see and hear the valley and see and hear the Marshalls? 4) When Will and Dad are in the cave, Will is drawn to that red herring of a green room because of the sound of the cars. Yet after it turns, Dad decides the sound came from another direction.

Now let’s talk about the relationship between the Marshalls and the parallel Marshalls. Parallel Holly, for some reason, seems to know an awful lot about this, advising the Marshalls not to touch the parallel Marshalls. When seeing that they have some opposite features, Dad decides this might indicate that they’re made of antimatter, which he takes to mean that they shouldn’t be touched, because the contact will destroy them both. It’s true that a collision between antimatter and matter results in mutual destruction, but this is true of any antimatter and matter, and not restricted to contact between some sort of macroscopic complements. Put more simply, if the parallel Marshalls are in fact antimatter, they should have been explosively destroyed by being in contact with the very air and rocks from the matter universe around them (and, for that matter, what are the green crystals made of?). Without the peril of not being able to touch them, the story loses some of its urgency, so it’s necessary that this restriction be placed on them for plot purposes, but in fact, this scenario as laid out is inconsistent with the very principle it’s trying to explain.

It sounds like I don’t like this story. In fact, I do and I always have. But it’s rather disappointing that so much of it depends on bad science and really bad editing. It looks to me like it was a rush job: Dad has long sideburns and Will has a completely different shirt. I suspect that “Split Personality” was filmed as an emergency replacement for something a while after the rest of the season had been filmed. A lot of people like to go crazy imagining a pervasive relationship between our Marshalls and the parallel ones; I personally see this as a unique, one-off situation that did not exist before the beginning of the story and was completely resolved by the end. To each his own!

[Galilee55]

I suspect, Professor, that you and I have similar feelings about this episode. It had so much potential to be one of the best episodes, but the way they did it ruined that possibility. Those who have read enough of my posts realize that I absolutely love any time of parallell or alternate universe stories. If this one had been done halfway decently, it would have been phenominal.

I did notice after watching this episode on DVD (it was one of the first ones I watched, if not THE first one I watched after buying Season 2), that the other Holly spoke after leaving the original Holly's body. I did NOT, however, put the connection of the smiling Holly in the bushes with the terrified Holly we see just a few seconds later.

This is one of my favorite episodes, but I do have several problems with it.

First of all, the acting and writing is just horrible. "Make it stop, Daddy! Make it stop, Daddy! It's never gonna stop Daddy!" I mean, come on! Holly sounds like she is about 4 years old in that scene.

This continues at the end with the "She's going out of my head, Daddy, she's going out of my head!" So, what is she whining about? She didn't want her there in the first place!

The other biggest thing is Holly not going in with them at the end. Why would she not go in? It also looks (from a person watching it anyway), that the Marshall's may have a serious chance of getting out, and yet Holly wants to stay out of the cave? "Quick, Will, there is a time doorway open to Earth. Go get Holly! Oh, never mind, it's gone now."

Seriously, I cannot think of a single reason why Holly would not want to go, or for that matter, why the writers wouldn't want Holly to go. She is also lighter, so it would be easier to have HER get on Dad's shoulders instead of Will.

Can anyone give me any indication as to why Holly wouldn't want to go in there?

I am sure there is more I could add, but it's 11:20 p.m., and I am off to bed. I am curious as to what others think of this episode.

[Rick_66]

"Firsts" in "Split Personality":

First earthquake in the LOTL since the Marshalls’ arrival (for amusement, compare Holly’s hysterical reaction in this episode to her more blasé one in “Timestop.”
First appearance of Marshalls’ fresh water supply pipes.
First and only appearance of parallel universe Holly.
Proof that “Holly” is really an alien robot. No Human would ever say, “She’s I” instead of “She’s me.”
First and only mention of the black Sleestak (unclear if she’s using the singular or the plural).
Revelation that the parallel universe Marshalls’ mother is still alive.
First sound of something from Earth (a car horn) heard in the Land of the Lost.
First and only appearance of the underground cave in which the Marshalls encounter their parallel universe counterparts.
First clear indication that a matrix table has 81 slots for crystals in a 9 X 9 pattern (interesting to note that when the table was on the wall, the stones appeared to be red, green, blue and brown; and when it was restored to the floor, they were the more familiar red, yellow, green and blue). Any math whizzes want to provide the number of possible combinations four crystal colors could yield?
First mention of the Marshalls’ old house in Harrisville (any idea what state that could be in? If it’s neither California nor Wyoming, it’d make three states the Marshalls have lived in- four if Rick was still living in Indiana when Will and Holly were born).

Rick

[Galilee55]

Originally Posted by Rick_66

"Firsts" in "Split Personality":

Revelation that the parallel universe Marshalls’ mother is still alive.

Rick

Actually, that would explain something. When Rick and Will find "themselves" in the wall, Rick says "He has his ring on his left hand. I always wear my ring on my right hand." I bet the writers were just trying to shoiw a subtle difference between the 2 universes, but if the alternate Rick is still married, then he would wear his ring on his left hand.

[Son of Enik]

This was always a rather interesting episode for me as a kid...and I must agree with Professor, that the ideas were there...but poorly executed. Parallel realities have always fascinated me and here was a real opportunity to explore the notion, but as I have said before, the writers had to "dumb it down" for the kids. I feel that TV writers often don't give kids enough credit, if presented properly we would have understood the story without having to talk down to us as writers sometimes do.
Professor, I really have been enjoying these threads and am really looking forward to reading your thoughts on Season 3 in a couple of weeks...keep up the good work!!

[Rick_66]

Originally Posted by Galilee55

Actually, that would explain something. When Rick and Will find "themselves" in the wall, Rick says "He has his ring on his left hand. I always wear my ring on my right hand." I bet the writers were just trying to shoiw a subtle difference between the 2 universes, but if the alternate Rick is still married, then he would wear his ring on his left hand.

Except that it's not a wedding ring he's wearing. It looks more like a class ring.

Of course that raises the question of why the other universe Rick isn't wearing a wedding ring. I suppose it's theoretically possible that while the other universe's Mrs. Marshall is still alive, she and Rick are divorced.

Or it could be that the other universe Rick happened to take his wedding ring in for resizing or other repairs just prior to his "routine expedition."

Or it could be that in that other universe, people (or at least men) don't wear wedding rings.

Rick

[Crawford]

I too have always enjoyed this episode. It did point to some great prospects but again it did have to be dumbed down somewhat, if it had been feasible, I think it could have been expanded into an hour and we would have gotten probably a slightly better episode or at least more clear.

Several things I noticed however:

The Marshalls seem resigned to their fate that they are going be in the LOTL for awhile, witness the creation of a fresh water piping system. I'll bet with a fire going, they'd have plenty of hot water. Rick is quite the handyman in rigging up most if not all of their tools. Of course this points back to "The Pylon Express" where the Marshalls believe the pylon will open again in a few years so they will make the best of it until then.

Holly's hysterical reaction to the quake could be interpreted as it is her first one. I know she lived California but those of you who are residents could probably say that quakes are not an frequent occurance or they lived in a city or town that did not have them often, Will and Rick obviously have been through one although being under a bamboo bed while chunks of rock are falling all around you might not be a good place to seek protection. I am also willing to bet that this quake sufficiently weakened High Bluff enough that it would collapse and be unliveable in "Aftershock". Btw, note the continutity error of one of the stones falling onto the bed, staying there and in the next scene has vanished.

I think the alternate Marshalls are not antimatter but more of a "what-if" situation. The alternates have different clothes, have met a different Sleestak and most importantly their mother is still alive. Someone mentioned earlier that this alternate Rick may be divorced as he is not wearing a wedding ring, I don't necessarily believe this to be true as some married couples don't always wear their rings. Rick if he is a ranger in this other time line may have also taken his ring off to prevent it being lost.

Holly not wanting to enter the cave could be explained away as the alternate Holly was claustrophobic rather than acrophobic like our Holly was. Residual memories left behind from what was for all intensive purposes a medium experience.

Getting into the main plot however, I think this is again a reflection of the breakdown of things in the LOTL. I have mentioned this state of decay or one could even consider it an encroaching entropy that some barrier broke down and there was a reality incursion. Of course it is just coincindence that the Marshalls put things right or so we think. We don't know how much damage was really done but I believe it was pretty extensive and would spread into the third season. Also, like with "The Pylon Express" why wouldn't the Marshalls have run to Enik about these events. An open and functioning time doorway is good news for all concerned, but the collision of time lines and possibilities is not. A major plot thread not explored but probably should have been.

One final error. Once the matrix table is back on the floor, note the boulders "concealing" the power cord of the prop. This seems to be a common problem plaguing production as I have seen the cord in several other episodes.

All in all, not a bad episode. A little restraint on Kathy's acting, tighter editing and a little more exposition and "Split Personality" would be superb. This would have been a great episode to close the Season with as it would have dovetailed a little better with "Aftershock".

[emwhy]

Yeah I have to agree with Crawford and Professor about Kathy's acting in this one as well...it made me hit fast forward a few times. As for production elements, the set they use when Rick and Will descend down into the cave is the same set piece from "Downstream", it was also used (although filmed from a different angle) as the sleestak pit in all those first season episodes. I did like this one overall, it's interesting to note it's the only other episode besides "Dopey" that didn't feature any other actors or characters in the first 2 seasons. Could have been for budget reasons, or just that the story didn't call for them. My one question would be the relationship that the matrix table has to the other universe. It's clear by the end of the episode that the table was from the "normal" LOTL, so what exactly were Rick and Will from the other LOTL doing with the the crystals in their hands...how did they get them in their universe? Also, wouldn't those crystals be composed of an opposite matter seeing as they how they belonged to a matrix in this LOTL...wouldn't the alternate Rick & Will have exploded on contact from handling them?

[Professor]

Originally Posted by emwhy

It's clear by the end of the episode that the table was from the "normal" LOTL, so what exactly were Rick and Will from the other LOTL doing with the the crystals in their hands...how did they get them in their universe? Also, wouldn't those crystals be composed of an opposite matter seeing as they how they belonged to a matrix in this LOTL...wouldn't the alternate Rick & Will have exploded on contact from handling them?

This is exactly what I meant when I asked, "and, for that matter, what are the green crystals made of?" It simply strikes me that the writers hadn't thought this through. I don't know why, but the tendency in much TV science fiction of that era is to say that if something is different, it must be opposite in every way possible, down to the atomic level.

[Tiamat]

I really did like this episode as well because it really got you thinking. The way I always saw the marshalls that were stuck in the wall, it was kindof a mirror image of the real marshalls. Sort of like when you're looking at yourself in a mirror, everything seems backwards. I agree though that the ring rick had on his finger didn't look like a wedding ring but more like a class ring.

I loved that room that spun around as well. I always thought that was such a cool idea and a great addition to the story, even though it was something that didn't really have any bearing on anything. I was always curious as to what "The Black Sleestak" was all about as well. Was it a race or was it a singular person she was referring to. I always assumed that it was the opposite of Enik, where this one had a black colour to it and was evil whereas, the real enik was more of a good...or at least a neutral. One thing is for sure, I'd love to see a picture of it....just like I'd love to see what the sleestak god looked like as well. One answer to this was that all the sleestak in their dimension were of a black colour but if the "black sleestak" was a race, why would she specify colour? The marshalls never referred to their sleestak as "The green sleestak".

In conclusion, I thought this was a very well put episode that really made you go Hmmmm after watching it. I like hearing everyone else's take on it as well.
Cheers,
--Tia

[Professor]

Originally Posted by Tiamat

I was always curious as to what "The Black Sleestak" was all about as well. Was it a race or was it a singular person she was referring to. I always assumed that it was the opposite of Enik, where this one had a black colour to it and was evil whereas, the real enik was more of a good...or at least a neutral. One thing is for sure, I'd love to see a picture of it....just like I'd love to see what the sleestak god looked like as well. One answer to this was that all the sleestak in their dimension were of a black colour but if the "black sleestak" was a race, why would she specify colour? The marshalls never referred to their sleestak as "The green sleestak".

Why indeed would she specify color? I think that in fact, it was to drive home to the audience the point that she was from a parallel place where things are similar yet different. The fact is, there was no reason whatsoever to mention anything about such a Sleestak. Dad's assertion that she was talking to someone else at the moment didn't sit well with me either, as what she said was ridiculously fragmented and unlikely to be of any utility to parallel Will or parallel Dad either. It's just another example of the poor construction of this episode. It would be another issue altogether if the series were going to revisit this world, but I don't really believe the writers intended to, or that they had any better idea about what the black Sleestak was or were. What a tease!

[RICK]

Again one of my favorite episodes. Over the years between the end of the show in the 70s and its return to network broadcast in 1985 on CBS, this episode, along with Elsewhen, Follow that Dinosaur, and Circle, stuck in my head far more vividly than any other episodes.

A great followup to this story is Personallity Split by Marc C.
http://www.landofthelost.com/split.htm

As to the wedding ring thing, men wearing wedding rings didn't become common until the mid 1980s. I know many men wo were married in the 70s or before (who are still married) who to this day don't wear a ring.

[phantom]

Originally Posted by Professor

“ How tempting it has been, for better or for worse, to ascribe otherwise poorly explained occurrences to these singular phenomena; you all know what I’m talking about.

Could you be talking about my story? I think you just might be.



I made it a point to tell the readers that the 'Holly don't as with most of the story was not wrote to it best ends due to lack of time. in fact around 90% the ideas are just ideas I did not use in my 'Real novels' You will find that many authors use ghost writers to rewrite their works before they are published and use Pen names as well

If I had of wrote this story the way it should have been written it would have been over 300 pages long so to cut out large chunks of the story I had to write it in other ways.

Just like the script writers have reasons for the things they do, things that would seem weak to some really have deep meaning if you know where they are coming from and why. It is about the viewing audience, the show would have been a flop if they spent all their time trying to make it all work for and adult Audience and make it a saturday morning show.

Your a smart man Professor, I will not try to take that away from you. So I am sure you know what I mean.

I know the issues with my writing but I also know I have talent.
My story is over, Why don't you write one? You have many fans on here I am sure they would like to read a story from you .. I promise not to pick on it in any way, What do you say Room Lets get Professor to write a story.

I also think it is nice that you are doing these write ups on the show, it is something that has been needed for a long time.

[Professor]

Originally Posted by phantom

Could you be talking about my story? I think you just might be.

Actually, no. Let me be as clear as possible. I don't object at all to the use of incidental plotlines to spin off ideas for further stories. What I don't care for is the use of incidental plotlines as an easy solution for otherwise inexplicable occurrences in earlier episodes.

My story is over, Why don't you write one? You have many fans on here I am sure they would like to read a story from you .. I promise not to pick on it in any way, What do you say Room Lets get Professor to write a story.

I have great respect for writers of fiction and appreciate the invitation, but in reality I lack both the time and the skills (to my satisfaction) to think about and write a story. Seeking tenure at a university is time-consuming and brain-draining, and while I regard my involvement here as a welcome distraction from that process, making a more serious effort could realistically compromise my career efforts.

[phantom]

Originally Posted by Professor

I have great respect for writers of fiction and appreciate the invitation, but in reality I lack both the time and the skills (to my satisfaction) to think about and write a story. Seeking tenure at a university is time-consuming and brain-draining, and while I regard my involvement here as a welcome distraction from that process, making a more serious effort could realistically compromise my career efforts.

Now you see where I am coming from when I say my story could have been much stronger 'But I simply did not have the time'