episode #69 - Space Creature

episode #69 / Air Date: 11/15/67 (episode #10 of 3rd season)
written by William Welch; Directed by Sobey Martin

Though Will is a genius kid, he fails a history test (I never thought about it much, but I suppose he's home-schooled). This causes him to sulk in his cabin; he wishes he were left alone. At the same time, Smith is wishing all the others would go away. The Jupiter 2 is flying near another planet and some entity there apparently soon begins to make certain thoughts a reality. The ship flies through some kind of fog (space fog? ) and soon after, one-by-one, the people begin to disappear. Maureen is the first to pop away, alarming her daughters. Judy fades out while going up in the elevator. Then Penny (all the females go first); then Don in the escape pod. So it goes, until Will is left alone...

This episode was intended, I'm sure, as a spooky try in the Halloween mode and has some really strange & inexplicable occurrences (though not too strange for this show). Near the beginning, the crew freeze in mid-sentence, the front hatch opens and some of that fog rolls in - they had just been saying it can't get in - but aren't they in outer space? Later, a giant claw hand is seen in the fog outside the ship. WTF?

Bill Mumy really overacts in this episode, yelling at his dad, for example, that he'd been told in the past to never go down to the power core room (the first we see of this - this is a bigger ship than I thought). Guy Williams as his dad also behaves like he's really angry during most of the episode, though that may be the point - he might be a bit unraveled due to the unusual events here - then he vanishes. Smith returns to the ship and behaves like the old sinister Smith from the first few episodes of the 1st season, even smacking Will at one point (looks real, too).

The whole premise of this one revolves around a creature which feeds on fear, done in episodes of other shows such as Star Trek TOS (Wolf in the Fold), but it's quite loopy and nonsensical here. The creature (voiced by Ron Gans) is supposedly a juvenile but what it is actually is never explained; worse, the main representation of this creature is a man covered in a sheet - there was no attempt even at some costume. Quite poor. The only moments it gets truly tense is when the evil (possessed?) Smith chases Will all over the ship; it really seems like he intends to do great harm to the kid. BoG's Score: 5 out of 10
Lost in Space Trivia: Ron Gans also voiced the creature Armus in the TNG episode Skin of Evil; what's eerie is that creature, in Skin of Evil, sort of looks like the sheet-covered person here, just covered in black slime. Gans passed away earlier this year.