"Never fear, Smith is here." - Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith
Lost in Space: Season Two, Volume Two DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
For its first two seasons, each episode of Lost in Space ended with a cliffhanger that would be "continued next week - same time, same channel." In September, Fox Home Entertainment created a cliffhanger of its own by splitting the show's second season in half and releasing Lost in Space: Season Two, Volume One on DVD. With the December 7, 2004 release of Lost in Space: Season Two, Volume Two, the suspense is over, and fans can finally see what happens to the crew of the Jupiter II - Professor John Robinson (Zorro's Guy Williams), his wife Dr. Maureen (Lassie's June Lockhart), their daughters Judy (Marta Kristen) and Penny (Angela Cartwright), their young Will (Billy Mumy), pilot Don West (Mark Goddard), their robot named Robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) and inept bad guy Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) - in the season's second half. Here's a hint: more of the same. Imaginatively cheesy sets, kooky guest aliens, silly plots, and bad behavior by priggish ne'er-do-well Dr. Smith - it's all here!
As in the first half of the season, the series is at its best when its episodes wallow in pure camp. In "The Space Vikings," the staging of a ridiculous play written by Dr. Smith is interrupted when a pair of magic gloves flies down out of the sky in a hail of thunder and onto Dr. Smith's hands. The gloves are quickly followed by a giant golden hammer. The hammer and gloves belong to the ancient god Thor (Bern Hoffman), but since they are in Dr. Smith's possession, he, too, is now a god. He is soon whisked off on a winged horse by Brynhilda (Sheila Mathewes), an opera singing Valkyrie, to Valhalla, Norse mythology's paradise - which in this case, looks an awful lot like the planet on which the Robinsons are currently stranded. Needless to say, Thor wants his goodies back, and insists that they fight to the death for them. This episode is full of tongue-in-cheek fun and faux-Nordic weirdness.
Another wacky episode is "The Questing Beast," in which guest star Hans Conried (Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends) plays Sagramonte, a clumsy knight-errant who travels the galaxy in search of Gundemar, the terrible Questing Beast. Sagramonte has been hopping from planet to planet for decades looking for the fearsome creature with the help of an eyeglass-wearing basset hound, and he shares tales of valor with Dr. Smith and Will. As Penny soon discovers, however, Gundemar is a friendly female dragon who is so harmless that she's even afraid of mice. The dragon costume - made of pink rubber and topped off with a pink bow tied in Gundemar's rubberized hair - is quite amusing. In this episode, Dr. Smith again proves that he cares deeply for Will. When Sagramonte's tales turn out to be nothing but bragging and lies, Will loses faith in humanity. Dr. Smith, touched by this sad turn of events, goes out of his way to restore Will's innocence.
Of course, Dr. Smith isn't always this selfless. In "Trip Through the Robot," Robot grows to ten times his size and will die if he isn't returned to normal. Will comes up with a daring plan to save Robot - he and Smith will venture inside the machine and attempt to reverse the growing process. Smith agrees only because he wants to protect Will. They encounter quite a few dangers inside Robot - imagine a 1960s "futuristic" Disney ride made of Christmas lights and plastic tubing - and a spooked Dr. Smith eventually leaves Will behind in order to exit the robot and save himself.
There are several classic Dr. Smith moments in the second half of the second season. In the otherwise bland "Treasure of the Lost Planet," Smith is forced to share his tiny cot with a burly space pirate (Albert Salmi), a sight sure to send fans' gaydars on red alert. In "The Mechanical Men," Smith is captured by tiny robots who commandeer Robot to be their leader. When Robot's personality proves to be too caring to be an effective leader, they swap out his personality traits with those of the treacherous Dr. Smith. For the remainder of the episode, Dr. Smith and Robot exchange voices, personalities, and even physical quirks. The sight of Jonathan Harris portraying Robot's physicality - including moving his arms stiffly up and down as if performing a futuristic dance move - is not to be missed.
This being Lost in Space, however, there are also quite a few episodes that are pure junk. In "The Cave of the Wizards," a blow to the head causes Dr. Smith to lose his memory and wander into a mummy's cave, where the computerized denizens of an ancient civilization plot to turn him into a robot and make him into their leader. Or something like that. This episode is so disjointed and seemingly thrown together that it is barely comprehensible. Throughout this half of the season, the writers and producers seem to be running out of steam. Characters from earlier episodes are brought back, concepts and themes are recycled, and even the alien costumes are reused. At its best, Lost in Space is of the "so bad it's good" school of entertainment. Episodes like "The Cave of the Wizards," however, are so bad that viewers may find themselves wishing that a blow to the head would put them out of their misery.
Lost in Space: The Complete First Season was released as one twenty-nine episode boxed set. Season two is being released in two volumes, however, in the hope that casual fans will be more willing to buy two lower priced sets than one larger set. The episodes included in Season Two, Volume Two include "The Questing Beast," "The Toymaker," "Mutiny in Space," "The Space Vikings," "Rocket to Earth," "The Cave of the Wizards," "Treasure of the Lost Planet," "Revolt of the Androids," "The Colonists," "Trip Through the Robot," "The Phantom Family," "The Mechanical Men," "The Astral Traveler," and "The Galaxy Gift."
The fourteen episodes are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in slim, clear keepcases. The front covers each feature a different publicity photo - Will and Penny on disc one, the female robot from "Revolt of the Androids" on disc two, Judy and Don West on disc three, and Dr. Smith on disc four. The back covers include episode titles, air dates, plot synopses, writer and director credits, and production stills from the episodes found on the DVD. Because the cases are clear, the double-sided coversheets show through to the inside of the case. The interiors include episode titles and chapter titles. The DVDs feature the same publicity photos on its accompanying case. The four keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which employs a clever variation on the series' opening credits imagery.
The DVD menus are similar to those from the previous Lost in Space releases. The static main menus mimic the opening credits. The sub-menus make inspired use of production stills from the series.
