Captain Steve Burton is a fictional character in the TV-series "Land of the Giants." He was played by television actor Gary Conway.
Bio[]
Captain Steve Burton is an American pilot for an unidentified charter country in the Late Twentieth Century. Brave, resourceful and good-looking, he is obviously a pilot with some experience in flying sub-orbital craft. His best friend and co-pilot is Dan Erickson who he has known for seven years..
On June 12, 1983, Burton and Erickson were scheduled to fly a ship with five passengers from Los Angeles to London. Due to unforeseen difficulties, they were assigned to pilot an older craft known as the Spindrift; their original craft is unknown. However, despite the change, they encountered interstellar activity during the flight that deposited them over an unknown planet they later dubbed Land of the Giants.
Since the crash, Burton has been driven to get his passengers back to Earth while preventing the Giants from acquiring their advanced Earth technology. The Giant government has created propaganda through the S.I.D. has accused Burton and his passengers of being advanced scouts for an invasion. However, he has still managed to befriend a few Giants and even help Inspector Kobick of the S.I.D. on occasion. Despite lending help to the Giants, Burton doesn't trust Kobick under any circumstances. Burton has also shown he is not above taking alien technology to get himself and his passengers back to Earth.
Through his adventures, Burton has also become friends with engineer Mark Wilson and shown romantic inclinations with Valerie Scott. After two years, he and Dan encountered two time travelers named Berna and Thorg and used their technology in order to try and stop the Spindrift from leaving Earth. (Wild Journey) In doing so, it seems they might have actually set history on its correct path. In sabotaging the crafts on Earth from taking off, they actually ended up with the Spindrift which was in a career bay at the time, ensuring their crash on the Giant's home-world after all.
Notes/Trivia[]
- It should be noted that as of 1983, the United States did not have any sub-orbital space crafts used in commercial flights. However the LOTG creators weren't that far off as the American Space Shuttle program used partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft which operated from 1981 to 2011 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
- No mention of Steve's family is made in the series, but in the LOTG novel, "Flight Into Fear," it is suggested that his father was also a pilot.
- In the pilot, the Spindrift left on their trip on June 12, 1983. However, their departure date in Wild Journey is September 25, 1983.
- Captain Steve Burton holds the rank of USMC Captain while Lieutenant Dan Erickson holds the rank of USMC First Lieutenant Commander and Alexander Fitzhugh holds the rank of USN Lt. Commander, but it is possibly just a cover.
- In the script to The Crash, it is revealed that Steve is seven years out of Princeton and had just transferred from the Chicago to Buenos Aires rocket run.
