Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970 by Jon Abbott

Author:Jon Abbott [Abbott, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
Publisher: McFarland & Company
Published: 2012-06-04T05:00:00+00:00

The Wreck of the Robot

wr. Barney Slater, dir. Nathan Juran

Aliens steal the Robot, and then take him apart for study.

With Jim Mills (Saticon)

After the increasingly poor quality of such foolishness as “The Curse of Cousin Smith,” “West of Mars,” and “A Visit to Hades,” it was beginning to look as though the series was finished and the promise of the opening second season episodes would be unfulfilled. Happily, the following few episodes showed a marked return to form, and “The Wreck of the Robot” was a much-needed breath of fresh air. The Saticons are wonderful adversaries (they would return in “The Galaxy Gift”), with their swaying bodies, shadowy forms, and ludicrous bowler hats, and there was no eccentric guest star with an Earth-like premise to steal the show—just good old-fashioned hostile alien invaders. Like the later “Trip Through the Robot” and “Deadliest of the Species,” “Wreck of the Robot” benefits from being centered around our mechanical friend, and the Smith and Robot double act are on top form. Smith gets to behave like a complete skunk, and then gets his comeuppance ... just what we like to see!

Even though Smith, Will, and the Robot rightly dominate the proceedings, most of the cast get a spot in the limelight, and there’s a nice scene between Will and his father when it looks like the Robot might not be coming back. Guy Williams did a great wise old dad routine, particularly during the first season, and here he excels; it’s good to see him with something to do. There’s also a funny bit where June Lockhart does an affectionate send-up of the Robot. If one was looking for an archetypal example of the second season at its best, this would be it, and “Wreck of the Robot” is a worthy demonstration that all was not lost when the series went to color; many critics of the series fall all too easily into the erroneous assumption that Lost in Space was serious sci-fi in monochrome and fell apart when it went to color. In fact, many second season episodes could sit quite happily in the first season, while the first season had more than its fair share of comedic stories. The truth is, that Lost in Space—with its cowboy, pirate, séances and hillbillies etc., all first season—changed pretty much the minute it went into all-original episodes after the pilot film was used up, and the best episodes of the first and second season were undoubtedly those featuring weird, hostile space aliens. What would be fair to say is that the series had a rather cheap, second-hand look to it when the color episodes began, and lost some of the visual class of the first season.

All the best elements of the second season are in “Wreck of the Robot,” but none of the worst. There are only a couple of dubious scenes—Smith on an exercise bike? I don’t think so! And the talking chess piece is a silly bit, and quite unnecessary. Otherwise, this is a classic episode.

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