Friday Night Movie - Week 11 - TV Show - "Lost in Space"
- Feb 11, 2022
- 4 min read
We are continuing to view popular early media portrayal of space ventures.
This is the trailer of the series:
A space colony family struggles to survive when a spy/accidental stowaway throws their ship hopelessly off course. - Imdb
The Robinson family was supposed to set off on a five-year mission to explore a distant planet, but an act of sabotage by the scheming Dr. Zachary Smith -- who managed to get himself trapped aboard the spaceship -- leaves them adrift in space for three years. The Robinsons, pilot Don West, Dr. Smith and their trusty robot move from planet to planet, always searching for a way to return to Earth. - Imdb
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From wiki:
Lost in Space is an American science fictiontelevision series, created and produced by Irwin Allen, which originally aired between 1965 and 1968 on CBS.[3] The series was inspired by the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson and a comic book published by Gold Key Comics titled Space Family Robinson.[4] The series follows the adventures of the Robinsons, a pioneering family of space colonists who struggle to survive in the depths of space. The show ran for 83 episodes over three seasons. The first season comprised 29 episodes that ran 1 hour apiece, filmed in black and white. Later, for seasons 2 and 3, the episodes would be 54 minutes long and shot in color.
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Overview:
On October 16, 1997, the United States is gearing up to colonize space. The Jupiter 2, a futuristic saucer-shaped spacecraft, stands on its launch pad undergoing final preparations. Its mission is to take a single family on a five-and-a-half year journey to an Earth-like planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri.
The Robinson family consists of Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams), his wife Maureen (June Lockhart), and their three children: Judy (Marta Kristen); Penny (Angela Cartwright); and Will (Bill Mumy). The family is accompanied by U.S. Space Corps Major Donald West (Mark Goddard). The Robinsons and Major West are to be cryogenically frozen for the voyage, and they are set to be unfrozen when the spacecraft approaches its destination.
Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), Alpha Control's doctor, is revealed to be a saboteur working on behalf of an unnamed nation, with which he communicated under the code name Aeolis-14-Umbra. After disposing of a guard who catches him aboard the spacecraft, Smith reprograms the Jupiter 2's B-9 environmental control robot (Bob May, voiced by Dick Tufeld) to destroy critical systems on the spaceship eight hours after launch. Smith becomes trapped aboard at launch, however, and his extra weight throws the Jupiter 2 off course, causing it to encounter asteroids. This, plus the robot's rampage, causes the ship to prematurely engage its hyperdrive, and the expedition becomes hopelessly lost in the infinite depths of outer space. Smith's selfish actions and laziness frequently endanger the expedition, but his role assumes less sinister overtones in later parts of the series.
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Series history
The show was conceptualized in 1965 with the filming of an unaired pilot episode titled "No Place to Hide". The plot of the pilot episode followed the mission of a ship called the Gemini 12, which was to take a single family on a 98-year journey to an Earth-like planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri. The Gemini 12 was pushed off course due to an encounter with an asteroid, and the story centered on the adventures of the Robinson family, depicting them as a happy crew without internal conflicts. While many storylines in the later series focused primarily on Dr. Zachary Smith, a stowaway and saboteur played by Jonathan Harris, he was absent from the unaired pilot. His character was added after the series was commissioned for production.The pilot episode was first aired on television during a 1997 retrospective.
CBS bought the series, turning down Star Trek in favor of Lost in Space. Before the first episode was filmed, the characters Smith and the Robot were added, and the spaceship, originally named Gemini 12, was renamed the Jupiter 2 and redesigned. For budget considerations, a good part of the footage included in the pilot episode was reused, being carefully worked into the early series episodes.
The first season emphasized the daily adventures of the Robinsons. The first half of season 1 dealt with the Robinson party trekking around the rocky terrain and stormy inland oceans of Priplanus in the Chariot to avoid extreme temperatures. However, the format of the show later changed to a "Monster of the Week" style, where stories were loosely based on fantasy and fairy tales.
In January 1966, ABC scheduled Batman in the same time slot as Lost in Space. Season 2 imitated Batman's campy humor to compete against that show's enormous success. Bright outfits, over-the-top action, and outrageous villains came to the fore in outlandish stories. Stories giving all characters focus were sacrificed in favor of a growing emphasis on Smith, Will, and the Robot. According to Bill Mumy, Mark Goddard and Guy Williams both disliked the shift away from serious science fiction.
The third season had more straight adventure, with the Jupiter 2 now functional and hopping from planet to planet, but the episodes still tended to be whimsical and to emphasize humor, including fanciful space hippies, more pirates, offbeat intergalactic zoos, ice princesses and Lost in Space's beauty pageant.
During the first two seasons, episodes concluded in a "live action freeze" anticipating the following week, with a cliff-hanger caption, "To be continued next week! Same time—same channel!" For the third season, each episode's conclusion was immediately followed by a vocal "teaser" from the Robot (Dick Tufeld), warning viewers to "Stay tuned for scenes from next week's exciting adventure!". Scenes from the next episode were then presented, followed by the closing credits.
After cancellation, the show was successful in reruns and in syndication for many years.
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Lost in Space - 1965 -1968 TV series - sci-fi - 1 hr
Lost in Space - Danger, Will Robinson - S 3 / E 11
Storyline - The Robot "falls in love" with an evil female robot sought by two aliens.
Contrary to popular belief, this is the only time that the quote, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" is used, as the space capsule Alpha 784 is crashing to the surface
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2.01 clip - First Time Dr. Smith Ever Said "Oh, the Pain... the Pain" (Lost In Space, S1 E7)
While Dr. Smith moves ahead with a secret project, seismic activity wreaks havoc across the planet and leaves two teams facing impossible choices.
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