Possibly the best known of Irwin Allen’s television series is this, his 1965 offering, Lost in Space. The first series (made in black and white) introduced us to the Robinson family, who after having been selected from over two million volunteers, were to be the first family launched into space, the year 1997. The family were chosen because of their combination of scientific achievement, emotional stability and resourcefulness. Their mission was a five-and-a-half-year journey to colonise a planet in the distant Alpha Centuri system, aboard the ill-fated Jupiter II. Dr. John Robinson (Guy Williams) was in charge with his wife, Maureen (June Lockhart), and their three children, Will (Billy Mumy), Penny (Angela Cartwright) and Judy (Marta Kristen). The other cast regulars were Mark Goddard as Don West, the Jupiter II’s pilot and navigator, and Jonathan Harris, who played the treacherous Dr. Zachary Smith.
Dr. Smith had crept aboard the Jupiter II with the intention of sabotaging the Robot (the final member of the regular line up, which contrary to popular myth, was not Robby the Robot from the Forbidden Planet, a myth perpetrated by many in the UK including BBC TV’s Telly addicts quiz programme). But unfortunately for Dr. Smith, he became unwittingly stranded aboard upon the spacecraft’s take off. The effect of Dr. Smiths sabotage was to cause the Jupiter II to veer off course and crash land upon the first of many uncharted planets, causing them to become Lost in Space.
Eventually a total of 83 episodes were made, with the final colour series becoming increasingly silly, with a combination of strange unbelievable monsters, poor scripts and the general cheapness of appearence, that comes from a studio bound series. Also the family just became too nauseatingly “cute” in its togetherness.