Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Lost in Space is stupid (Part 1)

As a kid, I loved Lost in Space but even I could see it was a bit cheesy. I had no idea how bad Lost in Space really was until I got older. I started watching every episode of Lost in Space starting with the black and white Season 1. I'm nearing the finish line half way through the last season which is Season 3. Lost in Space started out as serious science fiction and the earlier black and white episodes are actually quite good. The episodes that started to veer to toward campy in Season 1 are:

  • Welcome Stranger
  • The Sky Pirate
  • The Space Croppers

The best episodes in Season 1 IMHO are

  • The Hungry Sea
  • My Friend, Mr. Nobody
  • Return from Outer Space
  • A Change of Space
I just gone done watching Target Earth from Season 3 and saw a few stupid things

Here they are landing on the alien planet. Now this shot is used over and over in many episodes.



but then they have the nerve to re-use it when they land on Earth in the same episode. I understand why they re-use shots. They didn't have the budget to shoot different landing scenes.




Dr. Smith and Will knock out their alien doubles with Karate chops to the neck. Stupid! Dr. Smith notices that his double has webbed fingers. Notice the double is also wearing the same ring Dr. Smith has. How do you get a ring on when you have web fingers??? Stupid! The aliens have the ability to copy the humans exactly so why do they have webbed fingers? Stupid!



They take the clothes off the double and go to the trouble of dressing their doubles. Why would they dress their doubles??? Stupid! Here is the alien Dr. Smith waking up. Notice he doesn't have web fingers now. In fact, the other alien doubles only have web fingers for close-ups. Stupid!



The alien doubles easily take over the Jupiter space craft. They fly it back to Earth within a matter of hours. Stupid! The real Will, Dr. Smith and the robot are along for the ride. Will manages to warn Earth that they are aliens so Earth begins to shoot missiles at them. Will tells the aliens there is no possible way they can land on Earth now and yet the ships lands on Earth using the auto-pilot. Stupid! At this point, the robot has knocked out the aliens. Instead of letting Dr. Smith get out on Earth, Will immediately takes off and flies back to the planet ... within hours. Stupid! After Will rescues his family, they don't return to Earth and continue to remain Lost in Space even though it was so apparently easy for the aliens. Stupid!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bet you thought nobody would ever comment? Well, my experience is identical to yours. Loved it as a kid, even though the talking veggies were a bit much even back then. Always wondered why my father never watched it with me... he even had the nerve to say he thought it was stupid. As an adult, I too think its stupid but I still would watch it with my kids if they wanted me too.
Thanks for the insights.

Peter D

Unknown said...

The black white episodes were great. Such a shame it got so ridiculous.