episode #75 - Target Earth

episode #75 / Air Date: 1/3/68 (episode #16 of 3rd season)
written by Peter Packer; Directed by Nathan Juran

The Jupiter 2 is already in space as the episode begins (the group was planning to leave a planet soon in the previous episode but we never see them take off this time). Smith's latest boner involves splitting the Robot's bottom half from the top and then sending it in the escape pod to an unknown planet. The group follows with some reservations and are invited to land by an alien voice. In another rare event, this new planet has some industrial civilization, rather than a primitive jungle. The ship lands in front of what looks like a huge building.

The aliens turn out to be these formless, sludge-like creatures (rather poor costumes in the lower portions); they desire the variations of appearance in humans, as opposed to their alien uniformity (on Star Trek TOS, some aliens desired our human characteristics also, but in terms of emotional behavior). The entire group is replaced by duplicates, but Smith & Will manage to overpower their duplicates to infiltrate. The duplicates are quite accurate physically except, for some reason, webbed hands. The mission of the duplicates is to head for Earth in the Jupiter 2. The Robot has also been subverted somehow - this was vague.

This has some genuinely entertaining scenes; the new versions of Don West and the Robinsons have various personality defects. For example, the John duplicate keeps insisting that he's in command and creates a constant conflict with the duplicate West. The duplicate Smith is just as lazy as the original, though the original gets a chance to almost be heroic this time - only he and Will offer resistance to the aliens. This doesn't take full advantage of the scenario and falls apart by the end: the ship actually

Spoiler:

- as if the writer just ran out of steam. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10