I have a love-hate relationship with Lost in Space. Always have and always will. Love because it has to be the coolest, most awesome, and most promising premise ever to hit the screen — large or small. Hate because they blew it. Twice.

Lost in Space: The Promise

It all started in September of 1965, at the premier of that television series my 12-year-old self had eagerly anticipated for weeks if not months. And why not? It was to be a story of a dreamlike, magical quality that evades a mechanistic reduction to logical terms. It was a premise that left boundless the possibilities —      yes, even more expansive than Star Trek, which, to the amazement of my friends, I would forgo if I could watch only one or the other. Why, you ask? A couple of reasons. For one, Lost in Space was about a family. More personal, more emotionally charged. I've had Star Trek dreams and I've had Lost in Space dreams. The Star Trek dreams might have had more stunning technology, but the Lost in Space dreams always had the more heightened feeling and left me wanting to remain in the dream world when I woke up. For another, the Robinsons were totally on their own. There was no Starfleet Command to phone home to when the going got rough. It was a universe where we were just starting to delve into the depths of space, not one wherein we had all but conquered them. Oh, what a grand adventure that was to be!

Then, too, I need to admit that in the mix was more than a modicum of dawning lust. You see, Angela Cartwright and I are very nearly the same age. I'm sure that I fit into the ranks of probably thousands of other young heterosexual males who were head-over-heels infatuated with Penny Robinson. She was without question was the most delectable, most desirable primate ever to be spawned by the evolutionary processes of 170 million habitable worlds¹. She was as dreamlike and magical as the premise. Indeed, the thought of being lost in space with that archetypal adolescent heartthrob was a primal fantasy that persists in my psyche in some form to this very day, especially in her first season incarnation before she or the producers started those premature 70’s experiments with her hair style. It may be no coincidence I've always been attracted to that radiant brunette hair in a waist-length ponytails and bangs.

At any rate, the series began with every bit of the emotional impact for which I had prepared myself. I was left breathless, and not just at the sight of that pretty Penny in peril, but at nearly every moment from launch preparation, through Dr. Smith’s diabolical sabotage, to the fateful moment when they knew they not only would be unable to find Alpha Centauri, but that they would be unable to find Earth again, as well. The adventure was under full swing. And it held me spellbound each week, its cliffhanger ending only serving to initiate an excruciating 167 hours until next Wednesday's episode began, a situation made all the more intolerable because The Outer Limits had just ceased airing.

Sure, that first monochrome season had its share of camp, but by and large it was a thrilling dramatic series with some very believable situations. It was the cradle of all my favorite episodes: "My Friend, Mr. Nobody," "Return from Outer Space," "All that Glitters," "The Lost Civilization," "Follow the Leader," not to mention the first five that I just call "The Serial." The original theme song was much more mysterious and provocative than the third season John Williams theme, although the latter did have an energy more suitable for the movie. OK, I knew enough about physics and astronomy at that stage in life to wonder how in the world a spacecraft without warp capability² could possibly get lost between here and Alpha Centauri but it was easy to overlook that faux pas and enjoy the unfolding of the most noble and exciting adventure in human history.

Then it happened. They ruined it.

The Demise of Lost in Space

The second season arrived and Lost in Space fell prey to what for years I dubbed Irwin-Allenism — the tendency of a promising and exciting new television series to start its first season as a serious and absorbing adventure only to degenerate into the inane and revulsive. After all, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had suffered a similar fate. After a killer first season we were left with one of two plots: (1) somebody is possessed or (2) the Seaview has a monster on board. I became convinced that all Irwin Allen series were destined to start out with substance and yield to a slow and miserable Batman-style ultra-camp demise, until the arrival of Land of the Giants proved that they could equally well start out that way. Now, I no longer blame Mr. Allen. I've matured enough to understand that there could have been economic and political forces at work over which he had no control. In truth, he was a creative genius the likes of which are sorely missing in Hollywood.  After all, he conceived the series in the first place, and was the man behind The Poseidon Adventure, the granddaddy of all disaster movies and still among the best. Now in all fairness, the third season saw at least a partial return to sanity, but the damage had already been done as far as my perception was concerned.

So therein lies my disappointment. The producers took the penultimate visionary ambition, demonstrated that it could indeed be grand, and then purposefully dashed it into the rocks. Dr. Smith descended from an honest villain to a bumbling buffoon. Will descended from a precocious young genius to Dr. Smith’s sidekick.  Yeah, we know the reasoning.  Batman was stupid, so we're going to compete and be stupid, too.  Thank heaven that lovely Penny, despite those bizarre experiments with her appearance, remained a luminous gem in an otherwise dimming universe. Bless her heart. I feel like I never had the opportunity to see the series of that first season to fruition; that instead some other series — a cruel parody of the one I loved — oozed its way in to take its place. Whatever became of that original family Robinson whose lives and fortune became so inextricably welded to mine? Perhaps that accounts for the dreams. I'm subconsciously trying to bring some closure to a forever open-ended question.

Nevertheless, despite an intellectual and emotional crisis of such unprecedented magnitude, I could not help but continue to love Lost in Space. I just had to resign myself to the fact that there existed a non-canonical parallel reality to the "true" Robinson adventure. There were two of them. The original black-and-white series which was the space adventure to which all space adventures aspire, and the second one, in color, that was a campy Batman wannabe with only a handful of sound plots to its name. I'm certain that what kept me a faithful viewer after that downfall was the fact that despite their misfortunes that extended to a reality greater than their own, these remained my beloved Robinsons.

Still, the producers had to be doing something right for fandom to persist so long — nearly four decades now. And I can tell you exactly what it was. In any work of fiction — and this can be a lesson to any aspiring writers out there — characterization is much more important than plot. And on characterization, Lost in Space excelled. All of the regulars were different, all individuals, and all well-acted. You got to know them as intimately as your real-life neighbors. Downright historic was the Will-Robot-Dr. Smith triad, which was more endearing by far than that of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy. My own devotion to the series remains undampened, as does my loyalty to the Robinsons. Phrases like, "That does not compute," and "Danger, Will Robinson," persist in my vocabulary, as I'm sure they will until the day that I die. And when some cable channel should deign to air the series, even those pitiful second season episodes, you can wager your most precious body parts that I’ll be there watching them.

The Second Demise of Lost in Space

So you can imagine my elation when I learned decades later that they were making a Lost in Space movie.

What's more, it looked like they were going to do it right. The same Robinson family's setting off to colonize, this time, Alpha Prime. The same nefarious Dr. Smith's using the robot to sabotage the mission. I wasn't really happy with what they did to the Jupiter 2, but I could live with it. They even threw in a little monkey-like critter, but with the good taste not to name it "Debbie." The cameo appearances by members of the original cast was a stroke of genius, and how refreshing it was to once again hear Dick Tufeld's voice booming from within the robot.

Naturally, I was eager to see what they had done with my precious Penny, and was delighted with the results. Lacey Chabert's interpretation met with my approval from the instant she shouted, "This mission sucks!" Still nubile and still cute, but with a cool almost gothic facade over a very convincing early teen, in counterpoise to Angela's melancholy eyes, and certain to provoke an entirely new generation of crushes. Bravo and brava!

Likewise, Gary Oldman's rendering of Dr. Smith was a winner. He expertly preserved Jonathan Harris' eccentric mannerisms and robot names while adding his own sinister edge. And this one much more thoroughly rotten. You would come to love the old Dr. Smith, but not the new version.

Will was adorable but a little too smart to be believable. Or too dumb to have done all he did, especially if you listened to some of what he said with the ear of a physicist or computer engineer. (They should have ran some of those lines by a professional.) The other characters ... hmmmm. Well, that leads naturally to the next paragraph.

Overall, I was so bedazzled that they had made this film that I paid to see it six times before I came down from cloud nine enough to realize that something was wrong. Namely, the plot. It meandered with all the purpose of Brownian motion, and although fairly well integrated, ended up less than satisfying. That whole time warp scene with its multiple histories just didn't cut it. It was like being abruptly bumped out of one story into another, not once but several times. Nor was much of the dialog convincing. We ended up with a film full of top-notch actors with next to nothing to do. And to make matters worse for us fans, their only allusion to the chariot and the pod were that they were "pretty much scrap metal." A film without a chariot scene? What were they thinking?

Come on producers! This is the grandest family adventure ever conceived, remember? Run with it! You could have done better sticking with the plot of Swiss Family Robinson (go back to your roots) and moving it into space as Disney did with Treasure Island.

Actually, I thought the interaction between Will and his father (or both Wills and his father) on the issue of attention starvation was excellently conceived, but it came across as a stilted afterthought. Other than that element, which needed major rework, the script should have been tossed from the point they found the Proteus and rewritten. What other possibilities? Let’s see.... Oh, Penny’s preoccupation with boys. Move the romance between Judy and Major West earlier in the script. Penny witnesses that and becomes acutely aware that thanks to Dr. Smith’s tinkering, there will be no boys in her future except possibly – ack! – her own little brother! Heck, what could a good writer do with that?

Oh, but we need some action. Just some ideas as I’m typing here.... Penny does find an eligible boy aboard the Jupiter 2, but he keeps coming and going. Dr. Smith finds a weapon where there shouldn’t have been one and blasts free, but he can't seem to commandeer the ship with it. Judy has a baby on an accelerated time scale. Penny's blown out of the air lock. Will and the robot become merged ... occasionally. And things are only starting to get terrifyingly weird. Space ghosts of an alien race. Cavernous underground ruins. Machinery on a planetary scale, but for what purpose? Sort of Swiss Family Robinson meets Fear dot com. Yes, all this makes sense if you know what's happening, but I think I'll keep that to myself; I might have to write it down someday for that sense of closure I mentioned. But I'll tip you off that I gleaned it all from first-season episodes and on the spur of the moment just to demonstrate how easy it is to come up with plots. Nothing truly original. Nor perhaps was the plot the movie producers worked with. It bears a suspicious resemblance to a third season episode called Flight into the Future.

The Dream Goes On

The visitor to this page might mistake the above criticisms for a lack of appreciation on my part for the series, but nothing could be more horrifyingly in error. It’s because of my appreciation that I’m so critical at times. Lost in Space thrilled me to the core of my being. It was a dazzling hope, an explosion of imagination, and a far-reaching beacon to an adolescent boy who was to find his place in the world of science and technology — and science fiction. It is a prophecy of which my dreams are still on occasion made. It remains a piquant and enchanting vision into a world more captivating, meaningful, adventurous, noble and rewarding than my own. But it could have been so much more — for so much longer — had the ball not been unceremoniously dropped into the chasm of disillusionment. Why couldn’t they have snatched up some of the unemployed writers from The Outer Limits?

Today, it is the Lost in Space type of science fiction that I write, not the Star Trek type with its third-season morality plays, its Next Generation science twists (some were very, very good), nor its bizarre aliens.  Oh, sure, I have all those, but they're not really what the stories are about.  They about small, family-like groups whose love, loyalty, courage, and persistence see them through hopeless challenges beyond the limits of human comprehension.  Just like the Robinsons.

Now, I learn that a second series is in the works, one in which my beloved Penny is reduced to infancy. OK. Go ahead, folks. Blow it a third time right out of the starting gate and instantly alienate all of us middle-aged Penny fans. I live in constant apprehension that should it reach the screen it will suffer from the same malady as Showtime's second Outer Limits series: technically flawless but devoid of the atmosphere that made the original a classic. Regardless of what treachery might be in the hearts of the Hollywood moguls, I shall forever treasure my memories (especially that adorably cute pony-tail), and cultivate the wondrous dream of my youth that was Lost in Space.