so here are my notes to Lost in Space, the series is finally creeping out on DVD.
As for the movie there are no space prospectors none of those cheapo
monster suits...and does Penny become a go-go-dancer... she does not!
And is Dr. Smith played as the superb anti-hero he was in the 1960's!?!
He is not.
I mean no wonder he's so infantile and antisocial once a top-notch spy he's
trapped on board this lumbering space camper with this berserk-o whitebread
family with a robotic father who won't ask for directions and a homicidal
pilot...frankly I would've thrown myself out the airlock! Not Dr. Smith, he tries
to rise to the challenge as best he can...but you can see the Robinson's and
their harsh puritanical colonist ways are a strain on him.
Does anyone blame Dr. Smith for selling everyone out in a vain attempt to book
passage home?
Look who he's stuck with?
Maureen: People forget that in the broadcast LiS pilot she's referred to as
Doctor Maureen Robinson M.D! Somehow despite being spacewrecked on a half dozen
world's & in constant danger she finds time to revert to a traditional sex-role
to the point of cooking and doing laundry fer heaven's sake!
Don West: About every half-hour Don threatens to kill Doctor Smith, does anyone
else think that if Major West didn't have Smith to pick on, he'd turn his fury
against some other hapless member of the flight?
Judy: Ignoring Marta Kristen's slight scandanavian accent, just why did Judy opt
for space-flight anyway? Other than a depressing thing for Major West Judy is
pretty much a cypher...she's so innocuous she pitiable.
Penny: Penny at least has spunk, shes constantly trying to escape the tyranny of
her brainy-but-bratty younger brother Will. She's also the only member of the
crew (other than Will) who has some empathy for Dr. Smith's plight. Alone of the
Robinson offspring she enthusiastically embraces both go-go dancing and
classical music. I think she'd turn out all right if she wasn't oppressed by her
father's casual condescension and everyone's middle-class in orbit mindset
Will: Okay so the kids irritating overbright and a handful for his sisters, but
on the other hand I think he subconsciously realizes that Dr. Smith is the only
source of adventure and amusement in his highly regulated life. Much as he finds
fault with his character, Will needs Dr. Smith to provide a narcissistic
alternative to his familie's arid puritan ways...Will is Prince Hal to Dr.
Smith's Falstaff.
John Robinson: Okay the guy is supposed to be a natural parental figure and a
leader of men...so how come he never asks for directions or cannibalizes the
hundreds of tons of alien hardware the party has come accross over the years?
We're supposed to believe he and Will are extra-special close, I don't believe
it-week after week Will comes tearing back to camp insisting that the planet is
about to invaded by space-vikings space acountants and or space flower children
and what does Father Robinson do? Upbraid his son for having an over-active
imagination. Fifteen minutes later when the Jupiter II is being overrun by
monsters and extraterrestrial hippies does he have the common courtesy to
apologize to his prescient son?
He does not.
We never did get Dr. Smith's side of the story did we?...okay so he tried to
sabotage the Jupiter II that is no reason to get shirty with him especially
given the pathologies rife within the Robinson family.
After all what kind of lunatic allow his entire family to be shot into
interstellar space as part of a colonization drive? What was NASA thinking-we're
gonna colonize distant star systems one family at a time? I think there is a
secret Presidential Decision Directive ordering NASA to exile spastic dinks like
the Robinsons off the planet by any means possible.
What else explains the situation?
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