We all know that Dr. Smith was an egotistical, cowardly, stupid, short-sighted and selfish bumbler but was he also evil? My hubby says that he is evil and his original plan was to have robot kill the whole Family Robinson. I say no way was that his original plan. He doesn’t know how to fly the ship. He wanted in on all the space-flying glory and snuck on board and was too stupid to realize that his stowing away would make them all Lost In Spaaaaace.
Hubby also contends that Robot’s job was to watch Will. His prime directive was to keep the boy safe. Robot intended to kill Dr. Smith, realizing he was the greatest threat to Will but the boy stopped him. Me, I remember Robot being more Asimovian.
All in all, hubby remembers a much darker TV show than I do. He is older, so maybe his memory is better. So. . . was Dr. Smith a would-be murderer along with all of his other shortcomings?
Other nations are racing to colonize space and they would stop at nothing, even sabotage, to thwart the US effort. Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), a medical doctor and environmental control expert, is actually a foreign secret agent. He reprograms the Jupiter 2’s B-9 environmental control robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) to destroy critical systems on the spaceship eight hours after launch. Smith is trapped aboard at launch and his extra weight throws the Jupiter 2 off course, causing it to encounter a meteor storm. This plus the robot’s rampage causes the ship to become lost.
He was initially a sinister if not entirely competent villain, barely tolerated by the Robinsons. However the writers ( but more Harris himself ) quickly altered his character to become the arrogant, cowardly, clownish bumbler we all knew and loved. If you ever see the first few black and white episodes he is playing a noticeably colder version of the Doctor Smith prominent in the rest of the series.
That explains it. Being too young to have remembered seeing the first run, I saw it in reruns in the 70s. They only played the color ones. Just like I Dream of Jeannie.
BTW, I vaguely remember a b&w Lost in Space where Will somehow ends up back on Earth where a nice family takes him in and no one believes he’s been lost in space. And he has to get to a phone booth. Or maybe I dreamed it.
Throughout most of the show he was portrayed as a bumbler, but also morally flawed, a coward who would on many occasions have left the other members of the expedition to die in order to avoid risk to his own hide. Not quite EVIL … he doesn’t after the initial betrayal actively SEEK to kill/harm the other members of the expedition, but he was the LAST person in the world you wanted to have protecting your back. The other members of the expedition were written as so true-blue and heroic that they were painfully dull in comparison … only Doctor Smith, Will and the Robot had any complexity to them.
One of the few things I remember from the black and white episodes is the evil Dr. Smith reprogramming the robot and then getting caught in the Jupiter 2 at launch. IIRC he did still have that little girl shriek, however.
In fairness, a weekly series couldn’t sustain a truly evil enemy who was actively trying to kill everyone, though. Either John Robinson or Major West would have killed Smith pretty quickly.
I’m almost ashamed to say that I loved this show as a kid. It was Star Trek for children really, and even Star Trek was somewhat juvenile at times.
Dr. Smith was a distraction for me. I wished he just wasn’t there at all. He was the Frank Burns of Lost in Space. Or maybe Frank Burns was the Dr. Smith of MAS*H.
Mentioned my vague memory to hubby. He remembers that Will needed vinegar. So so far we got a black and white Will on Earth with his carbon tetrachlorine and vinegar in a phone booth. I think we all dreamed the black and white episodes.
You’re right, it was great for a little kid! Kill Crush Destroy!!! So much goodness–and scariness, too! The camp factor made every episode a Spock’s Brain, but t was a lot of fun. Good call on the Smith/Burns comparison. As a kid, I did just what I was supposed to, hate them both. My older sensibilities might have enjoyed the actors roles a bit more.
Nope, I saw it too. In fact, I recall watching it on the floor at my dad’s on what must have been Christmas 1965, because I was playing with my new slot car set at the time.
Unless my memory is completely gone, it ended with some country boy seeing the Jupiter II lift off and saying “Well, you might say it looked like a … flying saucer. Yeah, that’s it: a FLYING SAUCER!”
It wouldn’t be “Return from Outer Space”, would it? Will doesn’t leave in a space ship, according to IMDB, but maybe the kid said he did? (NB: I’m pretty sure I watched LiS, but I remember very little of it.)
He basically made the character himself early on in the series and the producers liked what they saw and ran with it. This was deliberately designed to be campy like Bat Man so what he created was perfect.
If I recall, Dr. Smith was supposed to only appear on the first few episodes then be written off. That’s why Harris is listed as “Special Guest Star” in the credits.
I also remember Will being back on Earth with a new family, but don’t remember much about the episode.
And I read or saw somewhere that the show was originally supposed to be more action/adventure oriented, similar to Flash Gordon. This is evident in the B&W first season. It was camped up in the second season which bothered Guy Williams because he preferred the original concept.