Revisiting Lost In Space...
- Thread starter Warped9
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Yes, the first few episodes were good stuff and a sad opportunity lost for a decent sci-fi series. The episode where they came across the underground city/burial ground in traveling south was something that I wished they'd revisited. Perhaps, discovering some technology of that dead species which is causing the break up of the planet. Irwin Allen was an instigator of many fun series in concept, but his execution was often something that belonged in a low grade sci-fi serial.
Succinctly put. There's a lot of cool stuff and ideas in Allen's creations, but then the execution gets sloppy.
It's surprising how many people hate it. Do they expect sci-fi to be always serious? Also remember the times, sci-fi was considered something in the realm of kids, like superhero comic stories. That's why networks rarely gave it a chance, that's why it was rarely the A-movie. They were aiming at a young audience with the show, just like The Munsters and The Addams Family (though as the sitcom genre doesn't have a coherent fandom, we don't hear genre purists railing against the genre being tainted by Hermann & Grandpa Munster).
Lost in Space had a family because it was obviously based on Swiss Family Robinson and was in the paternalistic mold of Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, as opposed to The Munsters or the Addams Family (in which case Dr. Smith would have been the head of the family). It was the '60s. The wild colorful romps and camp was the first crack in that monochrome veneer of conformity (otherwise you were eternal wanderers roaming metaphoric Route 66s looking for a place to call home or having adventures in... The Twilight Zone). As stated, Lost in Space was a product of its time, whereas Star Trek was ahead of its time with its very diverse cast (more like a '70s or '80s cast) and some of the background elements of the Star Trek universe, though the writing was very much a veiled Western in space, right down to redshirts having phaser six-shooters in a gunbelt. They always seemed to lose the draws though...
Lost in Space had a family because it was obviously based on Swiss Family Robinson and was in the paternalistic mold of Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, as opposed to The Munsters or the Addams Family (in which case Dr. Smith would have been the head of the family). It was the '60s. The wild colorful romps and camp was the first crack in that monochrome veneer of conformity (otherwise you were eternal wanderers roaming metaphoric Route 66s looking for a place to call home or having adventures in... The Twilight Zone). As stated, Lost in Space was a product of its time, whereas Star Trek was ahead of its time with its very diverse cast (more like a '70s or '80s cast) and some of the background elements of the Star Trek universe, though the writing was very much a veiled Western in space, right down to redshirts having phaser six-shooters in a gunbelt. They always seemed to lose the draws though...
We are. But doesn't mean we have to like everything that is under the label. I appreciate LiS, but outside the first season, the show falls apart.
Not trying to start a flame fight here, RandyS, but for a guy decrying "bashing", you sure take a shot at NuBSG whenever you can.
Of course sci-fi needn't always be serious. Futurama and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Wall-E as well as Star Wars come immediately to mind. Also Galaxy Quest. It's a matter of intent.
Of course I'm enjoying the show on some level, but nowhere is it written that I can't comment on missed opportunities. Or if the humour presented does it in a clever way or unintentionally.
Of course I'm enjoying the show on some level, but nowhere is it written that I can't comment on missed opportunities. Or if the humour presented does it in a clever way or unintentionally.
True, though those work in many different ways. Wall-E and Galaxy Quest work for similar reasons. Though the scenario involves absurdity, the characters are believably played, with humanity and "realness", and it helps to ground the scenario, which isn't entirely unbelievable in the context.
Hitchhiker's works because in ways similar to Jonathan Swift's writing, fantasic elements used for satire, easily recognizable symbols, references and framing of thoughts.
Not a Futurama fan, but it is quite popular.
Can't wait for Warped9's scientific analysis of "Bewitched."
As a child, sitting behind my mother on a motorcycle, zipping along at a hundred KPH, a few feet above the ground. No safety harness.
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Carrot Man, that episode make Spock's Brain look like fine art.
Revisited the early seasons of this quite some time ago. Loved it and it's still genuinely entertaining. No complaints. It still works exactly as intended. After the first season or two, though, it becomes basically pure silliness.
"There Were Giants In The Earth" **
The planet's native soil provides puzzles and challenges for the interstellar castaways as they set about establishing their community.
Oversized vegetables aren't the Robinsons only challenge on their new home as they also encounter oversized cyclopean bipeds. The beginning of this episode is potentially interesting, but then they graft on a major segment of the unaired pilot to the back end of the episode. This really didn't make any more sense then it did initially. If they have power (which they apparently do) and the ship can shield them from the absolute cold of deep space then there's no reason they have to abandon the ship because of oncoming cold weather. Indeed Maureen Robinson earlier in the episode makes this very point. Nonetheless this segment of the unaired pilot is clumsily grafted onto the episode where it's wholly contradictory to what has already been established. In the first pilot they were effectively abandoning the ship, but now they're just going for a drive in the wilderness. That said there's some pretty nice footage of the Chariot under way across the alien terrain.
It's also here, in the show's fourth episode, that Smith's transformation from somewhat sinister saboteur to craven and lazy buffoon is effectively complete. And at this point I really want Zachary Smith dead. The bastard is just so damned annoying as hell. Death by robot would be poetic justice seeing as how he wanted to use the robot to kill the rest of the others.
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i try not to think of the Great Vegetable Rebellion.
I always saw the Robinson's mission as more of a pathfinder than actual colonization.
It would work something like this: small ship with a small crew is sent to Alpha Centauri. They live there for a year or two to ascertain whether or not the planet is suitable for a major colonization effort.
If it is not, then they radio back a report, pack up everything, except a small automated outpost station, and fly home. Mission completed.
If it is, they send a report back to that effect, along with suggested landing zones and so forth. Alpha Control will then launch the main colonization effort, Huge ships dwarfing the Jupiter II carrying a thousand colonists or more each, would set out to do the actual colonizing. Perhaps as many as 20 per year. In the meantime the Robinsons are preparing for the incoming colonists.
If it were re-done today you'd have to drop the overcrowding element, as the parts of the world that are most overcrowded, South America and Asia, would not benefit from what is basically an American effort. Although I suppose you could make it an international effort instead, but that would undermine the sabotage angle forcing us to fall back on the navigational error of the original pilot to get the ship lost in the first place.
As for Smith, geez what do you do about Smith?
First, in regards to the acting, that's simply the extent of Jonathan Harris's range as an actor. If you've ever seen him in other shows he does the exact same thing. More than five years before LiS he was playing Smith as a Spanish Don opposite Guy Williams in Zorro. Comic Opera Villain was just what he did and pretty much all that he ever did. He just ramps it up or down as needed.
Second, if the Robinson's aren't going to just space him, he has to have an indispensible role in the expedition. The role that immediately suggests itself is, of course, doctor. Now the entire party would have been thoroughly trained in first aid and basic medicine, but if someone were to pick up some alien sickness, say a space version of maleria for example, having a trained physician would be invaluable. Thus the Robinson's would be compelled to keep him with them no matter what they might want to do when he fracks up.
Speaking of which, the frack ups would be more the result of his inexperience and the fact that he's untrained for this. The Robinsons would have had several years of training for this mission, training that Smith wouldn't have. He's also not really tempermentally suited for it, but he's all they have so they'll have to make the best of it.
On the Robinsons, I'd definitely play with their ages. John and Maureen would still be in their early forties. But Judy would no longer be their daughter, she would now be John's kid sister in her late twenties/early thirties, John raised her after their parents were killed in a car crash when she was still fairly young.
Penny and Will are the only Robinson children although both are now young adults with Penny about 23 and Will 20. All are college graduates with degrees in the sciences, Will having been a child prodigy got his BS at 16.
Don I'd leave pretty much as he was,the Air Force pilot/astronaut with a degree in geology, but dial back the hot temper a bit. He very clearly has a romance with Judy.
It would work something like this: small ship with a small crew is sent to Alpha Centauri. They live there for a year or two to ascertain whether or not the planet is suitable for a major colonization effort.
If it is not, then they radio back a report, pack up everything, except a small automated outpost station, and fly home. Mission completed.
If it is, they send a report back to that effect, along with suggested landing zones and so forth. Alpha Control will then launch the main colonization effort, Huge ships dwarfing the Jupiter II carrying a thousand colonists or more each, would set out to do the actual colonizing. Perhaps as many as 20 per year. In the meantime the Robinsons are preparing for the incoming colonists.
If it were re-done today you'd have to drop the overcrowding element, as the parts of the world that are most overcrowded, South America and Asia, would not benefit from what is basically an American effort. Although I suppose you could make it an international effort instead, but that would undermine the sabotage angle forcing us to fall back on the navigational error of the original pilot to get the ship lost in the first place.
As for Smith, geez what do you do about Smith?
First, in regards to the acting, that's simply the extent of Jonathan Harris's range as an actor. If you've ever seen him in other shows he does the exact same thing. More than five years before LiS he was playing Smith as a Spanish Don opposite Guy Williams in Zorro. Comic Opera Villain was just what he did and pretty much all that he ever did. He just ramps it up or down as needed.
Second, if the Robinson's aren't going to just space him, he has to have an indispensible role in the expedition. The role that immediately suggests itself is, of course, doctor. Now the entire party would have been thoroughly trained in first aid and basic medicine, but if someone were to pick up some alien sickness, say a space version of maleria for example, having a trained physician would be invaluable. Thus the Robinson's would be compelled to keep him with them no matter what they might want to do when he fracks up.
Speaking of which, the frack ups would be more the result of his inexperience and the fact that he's untrained for this. The Robinsons would have had several years of training for this mission, training that Smith wouldn't have. He's also not really tempermentally suited for it, but he's all they have so they'll have to make the best of it.
On the Robinsons, I'd definitely play with their ages. John and Maureen would still be in their early forties. But Judy would no longer be their daughter, she would now be John's kid sister in her late twenties/early thirties, John raised her after their parents were killed in a car crash when she was still fairly young.
Penny and Will are the only Robinson children although both are now young adults with Penny about 23 and Will 20. All are college graduates with degrees in the sciences, Will having been a child prodigy got his BS at 16.
Don I'd leave pretty much as he was,the Air Force pilot/astronaut with a degree in geology, but dial back the hot temper a bit. He very clearly has a romance with Judy.
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This is a pretty good take on a new version of LIS. My only question (and it's not a criticism) is why would a government choose a family for any such initial starfaring mission rather than a group of highly trained specialists? Thats a big question for me in regard to the concept. Your idea somewhat gets around the question in a more reasonable manner.
Land Of The Giants was also a version of LIS only no one was related to anyone else aboard the spacecraft.
Public Relations. You have to sell this to the American people, who are footing the bill after all. So anyone can apply for the program. Those that aren't chosen for the pathfinder expedition have a good shot at the actual colonization effort. Now the qualities that the government would be looking for, for the pathfider team would be pretty tough to come by in a single family, but not impossible. Remember all the Robinsons are adults now. Also I'd have John and Maureen already in the program in some capacity, maybe Judy as well. Penny and Will would be still in school working on their Master and Doctorate degrees respectively when they all got chosen.
Two or three years of intense training later, the pathfinder mission is launched. So it was a team of highly trained specialists who just happened to be related. It's really just a case of the youngsters following in Mom and Dad's footsteps. I've seen that lots of times in real life
With LotG everyone pretty much had Smith's motivation - I wanna go HOME!!! Not that I blame them for that. I'd probably feel the same way.
Two or three years of intense training later, the pathfinder mission is launched. So it was a team of highly trained specialists who just happened to be related. It's really just a case of the youngsters following in Mom and Dad's footsteps. I've seen that lots of times in real life
With LotG everyone pretty much had Smith's motivation - I wanna go HOME!!! Not that I blame them for that. I'd probably feel the same way.
As to Harris' range, I must say first I hadn't seen him play a villain any other time. But then, I don't recall seeing him much at all. Playing Charles Dickens is the only one I can bring to mind at the moment.
More to the point, Dr. Zachary Smith wasn't a Comic Opera Villain. Cowardice and laziness and fecklessness and fey snobbishness were what Dr. Smith did. His villainy was largely limited to random irruptions designed to initiate a physical jeopardy plot and he always repented of it, generally because of his semipaternal attachment to Will. If your argument is that Smith was a pedophile, I hardly think "Comic Opera Villain" is the appropriate phrase.
That's a pretty on-target description of Smith there, Ray. Well done.
I enjoyed Gary Oldman's interpretation of Smith, mostly season 1 Smith, pre-reversion to buffoonery. Not a coward, either, but purely self centered and not inclined towards physical confrontation unless he was sure he could arrange the upper hand.
Even if you overlook the 1960's campyness of the show part of the problem fo rme was that often in Sci-Fi they get the antagonists written and acted badly. I wasn't necessarily Jonathan Harris' acting that made the character of Dr. Smith so bad but the lines he had to deliver. And to make him 'bad,' in a funny but campy way doesn't play will for me.
Gary Oldman's portrayl of Smith in the film version of LIS was much better.
Gary Oldman's portrayl of Smith in the film version of LIS was much better.
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