In a 1967 episode of LOST IN SPACE (Season 3, "Visit To A Hostile Planet), because of a bit of a time warp, the Jupiter II ends up back on Earth…but in 1947. Hijinks ensue, as they often did in the third season, but in the end they manage to convince Dr. Smith that it would be best if they just left the planet rather than screw around with history.
As far as I can remember, at no time after leaving Earth in 1947 do they go back through that time warp back to their own time!
Please show me that I am misremembering something here.
I think we are just meant to take it as granted that after the episode ends they do what they said they would do.
Did they say that the wormhole was there and that they could slip through it again?
They did not. Always bothered me, too.
I don’t recall the series that well. Separately from this one episode, were they genuinely lost in space, out of all contact with Earth? Or were they “temporarily disoriented” where they still had contact with Earth and “mission control” by whatever name, but nobody knew where they really were nor how to bring them back? But still with hope that that could eventually be arranged?
My point being that if they were truly cut off from Earth, and then in that one episode time-traveled into the past to boot, it doesn’t much matter whether the contemporary-to-them Earth they couldn’t contact was the 1947 version, the 2100 version, or the 4000BC version. Returning to their original timeline or not would not matter in the slightest to their life of being marooned on one or another plantesimal someplace.
ETA: Some wiki-ing tells me they were truly marooned out of all contact with Earth. So what era it is back there matters not in the slightest to the Robinsons. Now if after their return to 1947 Earth, they somehow they managed to remain in our Solar System, that changes everything. Easy enough for them to return to Earth and deal with any time disconnect there may be once they’re done being space-people.
They were very much lost and not in contact with earth.
I think fucking around with your own past history is usually considered to be a temporal faux pas.
I remember way too much of the series. 1) They left the galaxy in the first episode; 2) They had contact with Earth/Alpha Control during one second season episode when they accomplished a fly-by but didn’t have enough fuel to land; 3) It was hinted that by arriving in 1947, they were responsible for the ensuing “flying saucer” craze.
Agreed.
But if they zapped out into wherever, it doesn’t matter whether or not they zapped out to whenever too. Earth time is irrelevant to them when they’re not in communication.
If they did want to remain on earth, Even in the wrong time, they just need to drop the ship in the ocean and wash up as random castaways. Despite chaos theory and the cliché of butterfly wings triggering hurricanes, most people live and die not altering their societies’ trajectory at all. These 6 people could be just another drop in the bucket of displaced humanity after WWII.
As an aside…the Netflix re-make of Lost in Space is actually very good. Worth a watch if you like sci-fi. (they change a lot of things from the original show but the basics are still all there)
Carry on!
I think that incidence back in 1978 when they sent a guinea pig back in time just three weeks taught us how wrong that is. We do NOT need another “President Vince McMahon”, and the less said about “World War Mania!” the better.
Agree that the remake is really watchable, and splashes around what must have been a huge budget to very good effect. Perhaps what I like best is that it remains ~1hour episodic with a huge cataclysm appearing and being resolved in under 55 minutes, and with enough peril left over for a cliffhanger ending.
A quick googling failed to find the names of the aliens that the townsfolk suspected they were being attacked by. Was it ‘Voltones’?
Quick questions about the newer Netflix series. I only watched the first two seasons, and never bothered with the third. Does it have a proper ending, or just another cliff hanger that will never be resolved?
Other than Will Robinson immigrating to Minbar, I don’t know how the original ended, either.
It has a proper ending. I forget if they leave one little question mark for a possible future hook-in but it is mostly or entirely resolved.
Sounds like a Motown group.
Yes, Voltones.
(Haven’t watched the show since it was new. I was 6ish)
Depending on their propulsion system, if they are in 1947, they can easily get home by flying at near light speed for 25 light years, turning around, and coming back. They would arrive in 1997.
According to Einstein, as I understand him at least, it doesn’t matter because all their high speed travel would dramatically affect the time relationship between their ship and earth. There is no way they could remained synchronized with the passage of time on earth. In fact, it might actually help them because time on earth would be passing faster (in relationship to them) than their own time, so the earth might actually “catch up” to them time wise.
Most TV shows of that era are subject to special relativity physics that return them to a default premise status that ignores all of the events in previous episodes.
Irwin Allen knows as much about science/sci-if as George Lucas.