Lost in Space changed tone almost immediately. The first episode was as serious as it gets. Smith was downright terrifying under the lights and makeup. They started lightening him up quickly and he transforms over the first 5 episodes into someone who decides he needs the Robinson's, strikes up a friendship with Will, hides behind the ladies and starts his give and take with the robot. By episode 6, he was cowering behind the robot and scheming his way back home. He and the series made a turn about halfway through the season as the series embraced more fantasy and Harris started stealing the spotlight. Camp hit in the first season with Space Croppers - the Hillbillies in Space episode.
You hit all of the other changes well and it was one of the few Irwin Allen series to fluctuate so wildly from grim space family adventure into outsight comedy and then a mix of the two.
Where Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea maintained it's straight faced approach. No matter how the actual focus changed (from spies to SF to monsters every other week), the show was always played straight (maybe two episode could be considered intentional comedies).
Now I'm wanting to check out "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"
Lost in Space leaned into the absurdity and stripped the series of whatever credibility it had. By the time they reintroduced serious adventure, it was still outsized, and by then the cast was over it. I loved Guy Williams, but by the third season, he was pretty much barking all of his dialog. Always fun were Mark Goddard's near homicidal rages at Smith that season. Not totally convinced Goddard was acting there.
IMHO it lost a lot by episode 2 when setting up peril regarding...
the heat of a comet. Headcanoning "meteor" or something probably helps, but to be a fly on the wall in the writers' room.
But Goddard's chances to chew scenery when barking in rage at Smith never cease to entertain. Also, LOL if Goddard was channeling something more direct than not, hehe...
A fun show, but for me a full third to half is unwatchable bad children's theater.
Pretty much. Check the brain at the door and there's
some fun to be had.
At times. For being unwatchable, a couple episodes become unforgettable the moment you sit through them: The carrot episode is as heinous as it is infamous, but may have influenced the more effective
Vervoids... but that hippie episode is atrocious. The repeated not-hippie music was bad, misplaced and unevenly handled motivations, cliches up to their antennae, and you'd think that Penny's indoctrination scene would have used silhouettes of go-go boys to counter Will's go-go gals (based on 1960s mores). Cheesy or not, the indoctrination scenes piecemeal still have a suitable creepy factor. But creepy for very different reasons was watching Smith wearing a wig that was surely a deliberate choice to mock the hippies with (albeit with the usual misplaced mannerisms the episode was stumbling with everywhere else.)
I preferred the later season version of the theme song which was a bit boppier.
The Jupiter 2 will be one of my favourite TV spaceships alongside the Enterprise and the fighters from Buck Rogers. I always liked that design.
It definitely looks marvelous, especially when using a "flying saucer" motif.
The Buck Rogers fighters and BSG vipers do beg questions about, shall we say, the untold realities of going to the bathroom, but they do look cool. Just don't think too much about the episode where Buck had to have opened the hatch - in outer space - to bring in Twiki to sit right behind him.
The Netflix series was the best version of this just a shame you can't get all 3 seasons as a set
Will have to look that up. I wonder if it was sold as a set in other countries and requiring a multi-region player?
The first 10 episodes was all I really need to watch it was a little more serious and Smith was downright homicidal in the first few episodes using the robot as a bargaining chip by threatening to crush a helmet with someone's head in it. I thought that line was quite dark and menacing.
Yeah, in rewatching, Smith is quite vile. But I do feel Harris was right in edging the role more as a bumbler (who ends up becoming
Flanderized nonetheless). His character wouldn't have lasted and I don't think the show itself would have lasted very long either; I doubt they would have had an arc where he genuinely becomes good, and the other issue of longevity of the show's format would also remain.
