episode #1: The Reluctant Stowaway

episode #1 / Air Date: 9/15/65
written by Shimon Wincelberg; Directed by Anton Leader

This was the revised first episode from the unaired pilot, adding in Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) and the Robot. It's 1997 - the saucer ship, the Jupiter 2, is almost ready for take off from Earth, with its 6 planned occupants - the Robinson family and Major West. Ford Rainey appears, as in the unaired pilot, on a screen as a very somber President of the U.S.; Dr. Smith is a military doctor, but he's also a double agent & saboteur. He programs the on-board Robot to raise hell at a certain time after take off. Smith was more serious and sinister here than the bumbling clown he would later become, even karate-chopping a military guard (the guard was then disposed of into the trash; was he dead? - it was left vague), but he was still something of a fumbler. He manages to get stuck on board as the ship takes off.
This was that one big irony which began the series and permeated most of the first season at least: Smith getting whisked away on a mission which he had tried to make fail. More, his added unplanned weight threw off the course of the saucer, which is how the crew get lost in space. The saucer flies into a meteor swarm (as in the unaired pilot). The crew have been in suspended animation until this point; Smith awakens West first, the pilot, and then the family is awoken. They wonder about Smith, but no one suspects him of his underhandedness as yet. Smith then remembers that the Robot is scheduled to go berserk in a few minutes and surreptitiously tries to deactivate it, but he fumbles this also (thanks to Will Robinson, however).
The first episode ends with John Robinson in jeopardy outside the ship as his line snaps; earlier, he and his wife have a near-argument - almost unheard of in the remainder of the series; there was a realistic tone here which was lost a few episodes later. This was a solid TV outer space adventure to start things off. There was a 'serial'-type nature to this and the next few episodes - they form an almost continuous story, like an expanded version of the unaired pilot.
BoG's Score: 7 out of 10


Lost in Space Trivia: John was keeping a journal in this first episode, another parallel to classic tales such as The Swiss Family Robinson; it was meant as another means of conveying info to the audience; this was discontinued, however, after a few episodes