Lost in Space: Complete First Season (1965)
Review by Cosette
Film:
DVD:

Created by Irwin Allen
Starring Guy Williams, June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright, and Jonathan Harris

Features:

• The unaired pilot episode "No Place to Hide"
  
• CBS pitch featurette- the original series presentation from network executives to prospective advertisers
  

Released by 20th Century Fox
Rating: NR, fine for all audiences
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Fans should own it. If you’ve never seen the series before, rent it and learn.

The year is 1997, and after decades of hard work, the spaceship Jupiter 2 is ready for takeoff. Inside is the first Space Family, the Robinsons, along with their pilot Major West (Goddard). Unbeknownst to them, a saboteur, Dr. Smith (Harris), is also aboard, and after takeoff he becomes an unwilling stowaway for the journey into deep space. Because of his sabotage, the family does not reach their intended destination, but are instead...wait for it...Lost in Space. In each episode, they encounter all manner of alien dangers, as well as the more familiar menace of the lurking, plotting Dr. Smith, who only aids the family when it benefits him personally.

Many of us grew up watching this show--it’s one of those shows that's fun to watch again, no matter how cheesy the dialogue or how unrealistic the plots become. It was filmed in the 1960s, after all, and by Irwin Allen (he of the major disaster flicks) to boot. As children, we may have been terrified by the monsters that the family encountered, and now as adults, we can laugh at the low-budget sets and “scary” tarp-draped actors menacing the Robinson children. Despite the dated feel of the show, I think kids today may enjoy it as well. For all the cheeese, it is quite wholesome family entertainment.

Although the features are not plentiful, they are a lot of fun. The unaired pilot is more serious than the series ended up being, without Dr. Smith or the robot--just the adventures of a family lost in space. The “new” first episode took a lot of footage from the pilot and reworked it to include Dr. Smith’s sabotage and the Robinsons’ metal assistant. The other bits of the pilot were also reworked into other episodes, so some of it may seem familiar, but it’s really interesting to see how the series changed from its original pitch.

The CBS featurette is really amusing. Targeted for potential advertisers, it runs through highlights of the pilot episode with pitches of how the different audience demographics would respond to the series, and how advertisers could take advantage of the different groups (“Wouldn’t Dad like to beat the traffic to work in this rocket-propelled chair?”). If you think the show is cheesy, the featurette puts it to shame.

If you are a fan of the show, own the set--these episodes are great to revisit, and maybe share with your kids. It’s a definite rental for any Irwin Allen fans. Wait for the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea set and compare monsters to see how many you can match!