"Lost in Space" - any love for this old show?

"Deadliest of the Species" from the third season.

 

Apparently you have no idea what the term ‘tongue in cheek’ means.

 

The fact that some people make the complaint in a tongue-in-cheek manner doesn't change the fact that it's tired and overused. Anyone who thinks it's a clever joke is sorely mistaken.

 

Methinks you doth protest too much ado about nothing.

 

Thank you..... Ooh that was the one with the female robot that Robot had the hots for

 

Well done.

 

I didn't watch any episode of the original LIS, but even in the most progressive nation devoted to the recovery and re-education of criminals and against simple punishment, first it is ensured that dangerous individuals are not in a position to do harm.

If Dr. Smith is a constant danger to the family, perhaps they should have taken precautions in this regard first, right? Because I guess the first duty of parents is towards the safety of their children. There will be a compromise between "Let's throw him out into cold space" and "Let's leave a potential killer alone with our child, what can go wrong!", right?

Or were these the only two possible options in the context of the show?

 

It was a children's show. Why take it so seriously? What next, are you going to complain about why nobody ever explained how Scooby-Doo could talk, or why nobody ever noticed that He-Man looked exactly like Prince Adam with a tan?

And Irwin Allen shows were hardly paragons of intelligence or coherent storytelling. The whole reason Gene Roddenberry decided to create Star Trek is because Lost in Space was what most science fiction in 1960s TV was like, and he wanted to do something better, to drag the screen version of the genre out of the cheesy kidvid gutter and try to raise it closer to the quality of prose science fiction. So don't act so surprised that the shows that were the embodiments of 1960s schlock are -- gasp! -- kinda schlocky.

 

Sounds like you’re the one taking things too seriously, not us.

 

Odd that you'd think that. I'm the one saying "it's just a show, you should really just relax," to coin a phrase.

 

And you’re the one getting all pissy because of another phrase.

But we’re getting off topic.

 

Except when those vacuum cleaners are possessed by a malevolent spirit...... The Real Ghostbusters episode in the shopping mall

 

I do think throwing out an airlock is a bit extreme, but you'd think they could have at least found some part of the ship where he couldn't cause trouble and lock him in there, at least for a while.

 

The latrine

 

^^this

It's "so bad it's good", and the episode plays with the nice idea of having vegetable matter being evil instead of animal life forms. Star Trek might have done something more serious with it, which would have been nice, but it's easier to watch this episode - regardless of mood or expectation - than most of season 2. The running claim of "season 3 is the worst" more or less exists because it seemed to start decently, but then devolve into "meh, scribble anything you want", leading to apathy and disappointment.

^^this

To its credit, even via the Batmanization fad of the 1960s that season 2 succumbed to, season 3 seemed to be more aware of its mistake - as every show cannot be a rubber stamp clone of the other - and changed gears. The episodes aren't problem-free, but - aimed at kids and/or others - there are still some ideas. Wasn't the season opener about the prison in space a possible influence on some movie a couple decades ago?

Which is a shame, as it also reiterates the show using sexist stereotype. People say that about TOS (and forgetting it was Grace Lee Whitney who wanted the miniskirts used as they were a sign of empowerment and a social statement, not to appease men for the sake of them - though it's not a stretch of the imagination that some men would have liked the outfits for other reasons anyway. Nichelle Nichols also wrote about them in her autobiography.)

Yeah, that's a flip side in season 2's favor. Season 3 had a couple moments where Smith, either natural to his character - or contrived to fit the plot - does something so amazingly dangerous and/or stupid, that it's impossible not to drop jaw and go "grr" at the screen.

Then again, I recall a season 3 episode that

Spoiler

Smith's presence saves the family. Maybe 2 episodes, now that I'm thinking of the other one - if I'm remembering it correctly...

Yup, it's time for a rewatch. I'm pretty much done with "Chef!" (1993, Lenny Henry) so this will be the perfect thing to switch to...

It'll be fun to read your reactions. There are still some classic episodes, and an all-time great, coming up.

Being 60s television, they're still following tropes - and acting as if there is zero connection to other episodes; each episode is generally its own isolated and independent set of events. Then again, even viewers at the time slowly tuned out - they weren't thinking like that.

(Fun side note, Fred Gwynne of "The Munsters" also pointed out the repetitious routines he had to do for his show... noting the lack of home video equipment, it made sense that a positive joke would become a running gag, for those who missed an episode because they almost never got repeated. Dr Smith seemed to be the same way. )

If you have the blu-ray set, listen to the commentary tracks for "The Anti-Matter Man" and "The Promised Land". They're riotously funny, especially "The Anti-Matter Man"'s.

 

Oh don't forge the episode with the space teenagers who can't get older and go go dancing Penny on a pool table

 

In the early episodes, didn't Major West occasionally threaten to put Smith back into a freezing tube? Although of course, they didn't do that because Smith was the breakout character.

I was not aware of a running claim that season 3 was the worst. For me, it's always been season 2. Although it's certainly true that season 3 started out trying to course-correct but then went to pot. It was pretty much the standard arc for Irwin Allen shows that they started out with a degree of ambition but then got lazier.

 

Precisely. I think TOS has a similar amount of character development to be honest. It's not like any of the character's noticeably grow to due events in past episodes. Kirk picks himself up very quickly after losing Edith Keeler for example. It's just the way things were. Characters in those days were wind dressing to keep the larger story-engine moving.

 

No, that's not fair. A lot of TV was character-driven, but in the days before home video and streaming and show wikis, TV was experienced more on an episode level than a series level. With no way to record an episode if you were away from home that night, and with unreliable broadcast signals that could be lost in bad weather, there was no way to guarantee you'd see every episode of a series, and thus each episode needed to be complete in itself and not dependent on anything else. So the main characters tended to stay the same, but the weekly guest stars could have meaningful, life-changing character arcs over the course of the hour. Or the main characters could have revealing conflicts or relationships with guest stars, or go through experiences that revealed their character without changing their status quo, e.g. having to confront a trauma from their past or reunite with an old flame.

So it's not a question of plot vs. character. It's a question of short stories vs. serials. A lot of short fiction is very character-driven, but it explores characters through a single key event in their lives rather than following them over a long period.

If anything, I'd say it's serialized writing that tends to be more plot-dominated. Episodes of serialized seasons tend to be about advancing the plot to the next stage, rather than exploring thematic or philosophical ideas. Even the character revelations are often more about servicing plot twists or catalyzing change in the storyline, rather than just exploring how characters think and feel and relate to each other.

 

These two are easy. In the Scooby-Doo's universe dogs can talk, and for He-Man, well, a sorcereress did it. Literally.