lost in space ?

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 , his wife Maureen (, and their three children: Judy ; Penny ; and Will. The family is accompanied by U.S. Space Corps Major Donald West . 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 , Alpha Control's doctor, is revealed to be a saboteur working on behalf of an unnamed nation. After disposing of a guard who catches him aboard the spacecraft, Smith reprograms the Jupiter 2's B-9 environmental control robot (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.

Props and monsters were regularly recycled from other Irwin Allen shows. A sea monster outfit that had been featured on voyage to the bottom of the sea  might get a spray paint job for its Lost in Space appearance, while space monster costumes were reused on Voyage as sea monsters. The clear round plastic pen holder used as a control surface in the episode "The Derelict" turned up regularly throughout the show's entire run both as primary controls to activate alien machinery (or open doors or cages), and as background set dressing; some primary controls were seen used in episodes such as Season 1's "The Keeper (Parts 1 and 2)", "His Majesty Smith", and Season 3's "A Day At The Zoo", and "The Promised Planet".

Spacecraft models were also routinely re-used. The foreboding derelict ship from season 1 was redressed to become the Vera Castle in season 3. The Fuel Barge from season 2 became a Space Lighthouse in season 3. The derelict ship was used again in season 3, with a simple color change. Likewise the alien pursuer's ship in "The Sky Pirate", was lifted from the 1958 film War of the Satellites , and was re-used in the episode "Deadliest of the Species".

Despite being credited as a "Special Guest Star" in every episode, Smith became the pivotal character of the series.The show's writers expected Smith to be a temporary villain who would only appear in the early episodes. Harris, on the other hand, hoped to stay longer on the show, but he found his character to be boring, and feared it would also quickly bore viewers. Harris "began rewriting his lines and redefining his character", by playing Smith in an attention-getting, flamboyant style, and ad-libbing his scenes with colorful, pompous dialogue. By the end of the first season, the character of Smith is established as a self-serving coward. These character traits are magnified in subsequent seasons. His haughty bearing, and ever-present alliterative repartee , were staples of the character. 

Catchphrases

Lost in Space is remembered for the Robot's oft-repeated lines such as "Warning! Warning!" and "It does not compute". Smith's frequent put-downs of the Robot were also popular, Harris was proud to talk about how he used to lie in bed at night dreaming them up for use on the show. "You Bubble-headed Booby!", "Cackling Cacophony", "Tin Plated Traitor", "Blithering Blatherskyte", and "Traitorous Transistorized Toad" are but a few alongside his trademark lines: "Oh, the pain ... the pain!" and "Never fear, Smith is here!" One of Harris's last roles was providing the voice of the illusionist  praying mantis "Manny" in Disney's A bugs life , in which Harris used "Oh, the pain ... the pain!" near the end of the film.

The catchphrase "Danger, Will Robinson!" originates with the series, when the Robot warns young Will Robinson about an impending threat. It was also used as the slogan of the 1998 movie, whose official website had the address "www.dangerwillrobinson.com".

Legal issues

In 1962, Gold Key comics, a division of  Western publishing company , began publishing a series of comic books under the title Space Family Robinson. The story was largely inspired by The Swiss Family Robinson but with a space-age twist. The movie and television rights to the comic book were then purchased by noted television writer Hilda Bohem , who created a treatment under the title Space Family 3000.

Intended as a follow up to his first successful television venture, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Allen quickly sold his concept for a television series to CBS. Concerned about confusion with the Gold Key comic book, CBS requested that Allen come up with a new title. Nevertheless, Hilda Bohem filed a claim against Allen and CBS Television shortly before the series premiered in 1965.

Additional legal challenges appeared in 1995, when Prelude Pictures announced their intention to turn Lost in Space into a motion picture.

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 Gemini 12, which was to take a single family on a 98-year journey to an Earth-like planet orbiting 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 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. To compete, 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, off-beat inter-galactic 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, appearing on the USA networks  (in the mid-to-late 1980s) and on  FX, Syfy, ALN, MeTv and Hulu.

Cancellation 

In early 1968, while the final third-season episode "Junkyard in Space" was in production, the cast and crew were informally led to believe the series would return for a fourth season. Allen had ordered new scripts for the coming season. A few weeks later, however, CBS announced the list of returning television series for the 1968–69 season, and Lost in Space was not included. CBS executives failed to offer any reasons why Lost in Space was cancelled.

The most likely reason the show was cancelled was its increasingly high cost. The cost per episode had grown from $130,980 during the first season to $164,788 during the third season, and the actors' salaries nearly doubled during that time. Further, the interior of the Jupiter 2 was the most expensive set for a television show at the time, at a cost of $350,000. 20th Century Fox had also recently incurred huge budget  overruns  for the film Cleopatra , which are believed to have caused budget cuts. Allen claimed the series could not continue with a reduced budget. During a negotiating conference regarding the series direction for the fourth season with CBS chief executive Bill Paley, Allen was furious when told that the budget would be cut by 15% from Season Three.

The Lost in Space Forever DVD cites declining ratings and escalating costs as the reasons for cancellation. Irwin Allen admitted that the Season 3 ratings showed an increasing percentage of children among the total viewers, meaning a drop in the "quality audience" that advertisers preferred.

Guy Williams had grown embittered with his role on the show as it became increasingly "campy" in Seasons 2 and 3 while centering squarely on the antics of Harris' Dr. Smith character. Williams retired to Argentina after the end of the series.