Land of the Giants overview

This was the 4th & final Irwin Allen TV production of the sixties (after Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel). It's similar to the latter two in that a small group of people are placed in a strange, alien environment and sort of 'lost' in it. It was also the most expensive for Allen, at about $250,000 per episode (by comparison, Star Trek TOS episodes cost about $190,000 each). The series took the Dr. Cyclops / The Incredible Shrinking Man / Attack of the Puppet People concepts and placed them on an alien world.
In this series, it's mid-1983, about 15 years 'in the future.' In the first episode, The Crash, a group of 7 people (3 crew and 4 passengers) and a dog are on their way to London in the futuristic flying vehicle, The Spindrift. The ship is swallowed by a globe of energy and emerges in a mysterious other world, at this point covered in some swirling fog, so the characters are 'in the dark' about its nature for a few minutes - they think they're still on Earth. After a rough landing, two of the crew wander out to determine their exact location and are nearly run over by an automobile (a now-famous shot); this reveal clues them in: the automobile is about 12 times larger than what they are accustomed to (picture an auto about 50 meters long).

It's not long before the now-tiny people run into animal life and other indications that they are on a world where everything is 12 times bigger than Earth size (this would make them about 6 inches tall if the giant humans were 6 feet tall; not all the FX were consistent; in the episode The Trap, for example, the small humans are confronted by a preying, er, praying mantis which towers over them; it should have been roughly their same size (mantises average about 4 inches in length on our world); one explanation is that mantises are larger than their Earth counterparts comparatively on this other world; as another sample, in the photo above, the camera seems a bit large; it would be 7 or 8 inches tall on our world).
Quibbles aside, the FX were superior to the average sixties TV show of the time; the money was there on screen, whether in the mock-ups or the giant sets. But, I've always found the acting to be sub-par; the 7 regulars tended to over-dramatize their dialog and exaggerate their gestures when reacting to a giant threat. Maybe there was no way around it - that's how you need to depict giant-sized danger, but I find the acting on Star Trek TOS, as one comparative, to be much more naturalistic.

Over-acting honors must go to Kaszner as the most imperfect member of the group, Fitzhugh, this series' version of Dr. Smith (from Lost in Space). He was always hamming it up shamelessly, exaggerating every line and gesture. The episodes even tried to duplicate the Smith-Will Robinson relationship with Fitzhugh and the kid, Barry (Arngrim), but it didn't really work, seeming forced.

Many fans are amused by what they perceive as Shatner's over-acting (on some episodes, at least) on TOS, but the regulars on Land of the Giants are very cardboard and comic-book styled by comparison; handsome leading man Gary Conway, as the pilot/captain here, was always far too theatrical when speaking about the latest problem or gazing up at the latest gigantic dilemma. The whole show was like an expensive comic book come to life, with good use of primary colors and low angle & high angle shots.