Review of Lost In Space: Season 2

Introduction

There`s a well-known Gene Roddenberry story that he turned up at the headquarters of the CBS network with a pitch for a sci-fi series he called "Wagon Train To The Stars". The executives listened intently to his pitch for half-an-hour, then ushered him to the door with a "we`ll pass on this one as we`ve got a show of our own we like better. But thanks for your input." Gene was rightly put out - the least they could do was hire him as an advisor after he`d told them all his secrets. "Wagon Train To The Stars" evolved into the whole Star Trek franchise, and the series the CBS suits liked better was a potty little fantasy-adventure called Lost In Space. Gene need not have worried about his ideas being cadged - the squirrels operating the controls inside the executives heads must have been fast asleep that day because Lost In Space never, ever let anything like the laws of physics trouble the logic of its stories.

Lost In Space was created by Irwin Allen, who had created Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea for both cinema and television. He would also create The Time Tunnel and Land Of The Giants for television and on the big screen The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Inspired by a Gold Key comic book title "Space Family Robinson", Allen went back to the source material and developed his own space-bound version of The Swiss Family Robinson (right down to using the surname again).

The show premiered in 1965, shot in black-and-white as the US had yet to fully embrace colour television. Former television Zorro Guy Williams was cast as Professor John Robinson, patriarch of the spacegoing family and de facto hero. With June Lockhart as his wife Maureen, Marta Kristen and Angela Cartwright as his daughters Judy and Penny and young Billy Mumy as Will Robinson the family had found themselves lost in space as a result of the sabotage of Dr Smith (if that was his name), played by Jonathan Harris. In addition to the family were the ship`s co-pilot (and Judy`s romantic interest) Don West, played by Mark Goddard; and the Robot, a close relative of Forbidden Planet`s Robby The Robot, built by the show`s special effects wizard Bob Kinoshita and performed by Bob May.

The unscreened pilot of the series (available on the season one disc set) had not even included the Smith character, but the first season proved that he was the most popular character. Predisposed to comedy, Harris turned a cold-blooded, stock villain into a bumbling, cowardly buffoon apt to snap at the family`s robot or dive under a table with the girliest of squeals. In the second season, the show became a showcase for the three-man team of Dr Smith, Will and the Robot.

The second season also saw the introduction of colour, or COLOR as the three main US networks trumpeted. A concerted effort was made in autumn 1966 to turn the American public on to the attractions of the new colour television and everything went brightly coloured on every programme. Shows which benefitted from colour apart from Lost In Space were (of course) Star Trek, Batman, Bewitched, The Man From UNCLE and even the Beverly Hillbillies. Lost In Space didn`t muck about with colour, they used it to psychedelic extremes.

Lost In Space was set in a sci-fi universe, but its understanding of even basic physics was shaky, so in execution it was a magnificently potty pantomime of a show rather than something that offered a message as its closest rival might. Thirty episodes comprised Year 2:

1) Blast Off Into Space
The Robinsons are forced to abandon their temporary planetary home when they encounter a forty-niner-style miner (Strother Martin) whose subsurface blasting has destabilised the planet. Cue for much camera shaking and falling over.

2) Wild Adventure
Nobody believes Smith when he says he has seen a space-siren (Vitina Marcus). She is after the Jupiter 2`s fuel supply, and Smith`s constant fiddling with the controls means the family can never get back to Earth. Ms Marcus spends her time wearing a spandex leotard and a salad bowl for a hat. Considering her makeup is bright green there has never been any comment about lab technicians tweaking the processing on this show (as happened with Susan Oliver`s makeup on the Star Trek pilot). Colour by Deluxe…

3) The Ghost Planet
Smith nearly hands the Robinsons over to a race of robots who make humans their slaves. Can nobody lock him out of the flight deck?

4) The Forbidden World
Wally Cox (a favourite US timid-man character actor) features as a hermit who shares a planet with a giant bird. Things are not as they appear and Will and the Robot get captured. Nothing unusual otherwise.

5) Space Circus
Will`s suddenly manifested unusual mental abilities attract the attention of the owner of a space circus. I`d have paid good money to see Spock wind up in something like that.

6) Prisoners of Space
The Robinsons find themselves up before an alien court accused of trumped-up charges that can be traced back to Dr Smith. The family work together to get him off the hook.

7) The Android Machine
An episode which features Fritz Feld as Mr Zumdish. Smith tampers with an alien "department store" machine and orders an emotionless android the Robinsons teach to act human. Unfortunately, the store wants paying and they don`t take plastic. Magnificently silly episode, with great support from the germanic Mr Feld who brings along his party-piece of punctuating his dialogue with a pop.

8) The Deadly Games of Gamma 6
Dr Smith agrees to a boxing match with a midget to win a trip back to Earth. If he loses, Earth will be destroyed and he only learns later that his opponent can make himself invisible. The Marquess of Queensberry will have something to say about that.

9) The Thief from Outer Space
A galactic thief (Malachi Throne) believes the Robinsons know where he can find a space princess, so he kidnaps Will, Penny and Smith. Smith finds himself in bikini-machine territory when he is lashed under a pendulum.

10) Curse Of Cousin Smith
Smith encounters his cousin Jeremiah, who turns out to be intent on killing Smith for the family fortune. Comedy-western regular Henry Jones guest stars.

11) The Dream Monster
A mad scientist drains the Robinsons of their emotions to give them to his android.

12) West Of Mars
One of Jonathan Harris` favourite episodes as he is able to chew the scenery more than ever in this evil-twin story that could wind up with him boiled in oil.

13) A Visit To Hades
Dr Smith mistakes a space prison for winding up where Don West keeps wishing he`d go.

14) The Wreck Of The Robot
Aliens steal the Robot intent on finding out what makes Earth technology tick. In the Robot`s case it`s a battery. Duh!

15) The Golden Man
Considered to be one of the series classics, and a typical morality tale about good not always being beautiful and evil not always being ugly. Fans particularly remember the "potatochipulator" from this episode.

16) The Girl From The Green Dimension
That green bird from the second episode turns Will a Kermitly shade and Smith finds himself in a love triangle. Has she NO taste?

17) The Questing Beast
Knights and Dragons in a space show? If it`s an Irwin Allen one, certainly. Will gets chummy with the dragon, naturally and the Knight has an identity crisis.

18) The Toymaker
Zumdish and the department store machine return and turn Smith into a clown.

19) Mutiny In Space
Looney space admiral pressgangs Smith, Will and The Robot into his crew.

20) The Space Vikings
Now we get Norse Gods showing up…

21) Treasure Of The Lost Planet
Dr Smith becomes the unwitting recipient of treasure and space pirates want it off him.

22) Rocket To Earth
Grandpa Munster (Al Lewis) guests as a space sorcerer and Smith becomes his apprentice to steal his spaceship so he can get back to Earth. No brooms to worry about, but the ship is programmed to self-destruct once it gets into space.

23) The Mechanical Men
Little robots tie up Dr Smith and demand that the Robinsons give them The Robot to lead them. Discovering the Robot isn`t the ideal leader, they swap his mind for Dr Smith`s.

24) Revolt Of The Androids
Verda, the android from "The Android Machine" returns pursued by an alien superman sent to bring her back or destroy her.

25) The Cave Of The Wizards
Smith is transformed into an alien by a computer.

26) The Colonists
Space Amazons capture the Jupiter 2 team, and the fate of Professor Robinson and Don depends on Smith`s powers of seduction.

27) Trip Through The Robot
THE best show of the run, when the Robot`s energy cells conk out and he winds up in a fog that makes him expand to enormous size. Will and Dr Smith climb inside to fix him.

28) The Phantom Family
Will finds his family replaced by androids which he must train to be human or his real family dies.

29) The Astral Traveler
Will and Dr Smith pass through a time-warp to 19th Century Scotland.

30) The Galaxy Gift
John Carradine guest stars as Arcon, and Penny`s loyalties are tested to the limit in this cheese-pared episode which re-uses a number of costumes from earlier in the season in a cost-cutting move. This must have been before clip-shows.

Video

Wildly colourful, these shows were made to showcase colour television, which was being introduced across the US that year. Presented in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, the episodes sometimes suffer from a little print damage and the occasional moment of colour cast. The pictures are on the whole pleasingly sharp and have that bright, contrasty look that the original Star Trek episodes have.

Audio

Sound was the poor relative of picture in the world of television and it took until the mid 1980s for any improvements in sound technology to reach television. These episodes come with their original mono soundtracks reproduced faithfully in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.

The main theme of the show was written by a certain Johnny Williams. Later in his career he would prefer to be known as John and was responsible for most of the iconic movie themes of the past thirty years including those for Star Wars, Close Encounters, Superman… Do I need to go on?

Features

There`s a rolling stills gallery on disc eight. Space is a bit of a premium on these discs with four episodes to a disc and thirty episodes to house. There are full subtitles on all the shows.

Conclusion

Sometimes you go back to a show after thirty years and you`re disappointed - you should have left the thing back in your childhood where it belonged. Lost In Space isn`t one of those shows, and this DVD release goes some of the way to making up for Dr Smith and The Robot being off our tv screens in the UK for decades. I love the barmy storylines. I love the way spaceships land by simply appearing in a puff of smoke and a loud bang. I love the oddball characters, not least Dr Smith and The Robot.

I look at Data on Star Trek: Next Generation, then at The Robot from Lost In Space and I think to myself "that`s the way to build a robot". You can really believe in The Robot, or his close cousin Robby The Robot. They`re not just some pasty faced (but enormously talented) bloke with a bit of plastic glued to his head, they`re proper ambulatory buckets of bolts. Real robots.

Lastly to Dr Smith. He might have been responsible for them being Lost In Space, but when the cards were down he was the best friend Will Robinson had. He was the Cowardly Lion of space exploration. There was a man with no pretensions of bravery. He was pompous, greedy, lazy, and duplicitous but he was far more believable than the cardboard Professor Robinson or Don West. Let`s face it, if any of us wound up travelling through space, we`d all be skiving off whining "The pain… ohhhh the pain!!!"