episode #5 - The Hungry Sea

episode #5 / Air Date: 10/13/65
written by William Welch, Shimon Wincelberg; Directed by Sobey Martin

This continues from the previous episode, as the Robinsons continue in the Chariot, fleeing a cold snap. They get out of an alien crypt as a quake hits and then traverse a frozen sea. Smith, meanwhile, putters around the ship with The Robot. It gets pretty cold outside (-120 F), but the ship shields him enough so that he's just chilly in a parka. The alarming news, however, is that the Robot computes a sudden rise in temperature; it turns out that the planet's orbit around its sun is some weird ellipse - the temperature will briefly rise so high as to be intolerable to unprotected humans. Smith deduces that the Robinsons are doomed.

This episode has a few interesting moments of drama, something that will all but disappear from the show within a few episodes. This even includes Smith and his introspection in this episode; he initially cares little if the Robinsons die, but very soon he realizes he will be alone with the Robot and this thought frightens him. He tries to contact the Robinsons. There is also the drama of tension surfacing between John and Don, who displays his short temper here; he's already very angry & impatient about Smith due to the events of the past few episodes; this boils over into a belligerent attitude about John's command approach.

Anyway, the group (or, John, at least) figures out what will happen in regards to the sun, so they have to come up with some kind of shelter for themselves. When they head back to the ship, this time the sea is a raging storm (the last of the re-used footage from the unaired pilot). In all, the last of the good episodes for awhile; the severe climate changes depicted here are broached a few episodes later but were not bad enough to cause plants to burn - it was more of a heat wave. BoG's Score: 7 out of 10

Lost in Space Trivia: this is when we first see Dr. Smith in the now-familiar sweater over turtleneck shirt attire; he also begins to behave in a more comical manner, less as sinister.

Epilogue Tag: Will is sending out a radio signal; John shuts it off due to a lightning storm, but he's too late; it seems that a missile has homed in on the ship!