# Lost In Space's Dr. Smith: Bumbler or Evil **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 30, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535 "2012-12-30T01:35:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/21 "2012-12-30T16:14:06Z")
Well, the entire thing makes no sense anyway. An expensive interstellar COLONY ship isn’t going to have five members of one nuclear family and one non-family member on it. Not much of a ‘colony’ and a little creepy if you’re looking at long term populating of the colony world. But of course, in 60’s TV terms, a lot cheaper than a cast of 20 or so. Hell, most of the cast of original Star Trek were ‘day players’ (ie, no long term contract). Then, if you’re a ‘foreign agent’, you’re a traitor being paid to sabotage the ship. BUT, once you’re ON that ship and away from Earth (where presumably, your payment and your foreign contacts are), you don’t really have a lot of incentive to continue to sabotage the ship now do you! For anyone of intelligence, it becomes “Oh wait, I kinda want to live, so maybe I’d better start being a good guy now”. Plus, you know, there are two daughters in that family and you’re one of two non-family males on the ship. Sure, she’s a little young, but give it time… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/22 "2012-12-30T16:20:59Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Well, the entire thing makes no sense anyway. An expensive interstellar COLONY ship isn’t going to have five members of one nuclear family and one non-family member on it. I thought they were only supposed to be scoping out potential sites for recolonization? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/23 "2012-12-30T17:56:11Z")
The [wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space) says; \*Its mission is to take a single family on a five-and-a-half-year journey (stated as 98 years in the pilot episode) to a planet of the nearby star Alpha Centauri (the pilot episode refers to the planet itself as Alpha Centauri), which space probes reveal possesses ideal conditions for human life. The Robinson family was selected from among two million volunteers for this mission. The family includes Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams), his wife, Maureen (June Lockhart), their children, Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright), and Will (Billy Mumy). They will be accompanied by their pilot, US Space Corps Major Donald West (Mark Goddard), who is trained to fly the ship in the unlikely event that its sophisticated automatic guidance system malfunctions. 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.\* ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/24 "2012-12-30T18:19:29Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > _Its mission is to take a single family on a five-and-a-half-year journey (stated as 98 years in the pilot episode) to a planet of the nearby star Alpha Centauri (the pilot episode refers to the planet itself as Alpha Centauri), which space probes reveal possesses ideal conditions for human life._ Five and a half years to them, 98 years to those remaining on Earth, one would assume? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/25 "2012-12-30T18:57:28Z")
Every episode I always wondered why they didn’t kill Smith. He caused the problem and he was simply a pain in the ass. Out the vent you go! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/26 "2012-12-30T19:22:07Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Every episode I always wondered why they didn’t kill Smith. He caused the problem and he was simply a pain in the ass. Out the vent you go! I often wondered the same thing about Gilligan. No jury would have convicted them… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/27 "2012-12-30T19:27:03Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I often wondered the same thing about Gilligan. No jury would have convicted them… :rolleyes: But Gilligan was lovable. Dr. Smith was insufferable. I’d have left him on a planet with some provisions. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/28 "2012-12-30T20:33:36Z")
[Here’s the whole episode.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=677163) ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/29 "2012-12-30T20:34:41Z")
Smith was, IIRC, at least occasionally useful. Gilligan was constantly screwing things up. I’d probably have killed either one sooner or later, but I’d have killed Gilligan first. I mean, Gilligan is Shredder Guy. So, feet first into the shredder he goes, if I’ve got access to a shredder. Otherwise, he gets cut up for bait. I’ll grant you that Gilligan is friendlier and nicer than Smith. However, that doesn’t make him more tolerable to me. I can get along better with someone who has his own best interest in mind than I can with an amiable idiot. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/30 "2012-12-30T20:43:19Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Dr. Smith was insufferable. I’d have left him on a planet with some provisions. He probably would have come back to haunt you in another 30 years or so with his own troop of slavishly devoted minions. And you would have been forcibly marooned on your own planetoid crying “SMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITH!!!” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/31 "2012-12-30T20:47:13Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Yep. Your hubby is correct :). To quote wiki: > > _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. The “doctor” part changed, too, IIRC. He started out as an M.D. – the one who checked out the whole crew of the Jupiter 2 before launch – but in a later episode, he talked himself into trouble when aliens heard him call himself “doctor,” and they presumed he mean “medical” – Robot jumped in to correct that point – “No, his degree is in–” and Smith shushed him, out of sheer vanity apparently – and the aliens wanted him to perform brain surgery on their leader. “If our leader dies, your life will also be ended!” I forget how that episode ends. Of course, it made no sense that aliens would expect a physician of some **other species** could help one their own, but by that time nothing about the show made any sense at all anyway – they were encountering space cowboys and giant talking carrots every week and they all spoke English – in the first, B&W season, before somebody heard the call of the camp, the show was something just a little bit closer to serious hard SF. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/32 "2012-12-30T20:49:35Z")
I would have killed Smith and Gilligan…but I would have felt bad about killing Gilligan. Smith? I wouldn’t have missed a minute of sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/33 "2012-12-30T20:57:32Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > [Here’s the whole episode.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=677163) **The Straight Dope’s Dr. Seid: Bumbler or Evil?** 😛 (post links back to thread) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/34 "2012-12-30T21:01:30Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > By that time nothing about the show made any sense at all anyway – they were encountering space cowboys and giant talking carrots every week and they all spoke English – in the first, B&W season, before somebody heard the call of the camp, the show was something just a little bit closer to serious hard SF. As was touched upon in at least one other thread, this was typical of most Irwin Allen shows: they would start out really good and then go rapidly downhill after the first or second season, presumably due to the stable of hack writers he employed to churn out scripts to meet the production schedule. This was particularly true of _Lost in Space_ and _Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea_; the latter reached its nadir with episodes like “The Werewolf,” “The Old Sea Captain’s Ghost,” and “Silver-Skinned Aliens Hijack _Seaview_ So They Can Use Its Atomic Reactor to Hatch Their Eggs.” I loved _Time Tunnel_, even though it required complete suspension of disbelief; the best thing about _Land of the Giants_ right from the start was the two chicks with big boobs. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/35 "2012-12-30T21:07:21Z")
I seem to remember in the first run, that Smith had re-programmed the robot to kill any members of the crew when he (the robot) got them alone. The robot was going to shoot electricity out of his claws and destroy Will, but Will found that if he spoke in a deeper register, the robot would obey him (Dr. Smith had programmed the robot). The robot was supposed to be an “environmental control robot” IIRC. I remember the downward spiral of the series. It started off as an adventure (“Swiss Family Robinson Goes to Alpha Centauri”) but turned into camp and I lost interest. But I agree - Smith was annoying at best and a danger at worst. Someone should have read “The Cold Equations” before take-off. In another episode, the family had some of the “pure neutronium” they needed to get back to Earth, but they had to trade it for Smith, who had been kidnapped by aliens or something. Maybe that was when my willing suspension of disbelief failed - they were able to carry the containers of neutronium with one hand, and even as a child I knew that wouldn’t be possible in Earth-normal gravity. All this shit I remember. Where I parked the car - not so much. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/36 "2012-12-30T21:36:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > – in the first, B&W season, before somebody heard the call of the camp, the show was something just a little bit closer to serious hard SF. They clearly changed directions from SF to camp. If you watch the PBS show on SF TV shows they were trying to emulate the formula for Batman with brightly colored characters and sets. People seem to forget that color TV (and color TV shows) were new in the 60’s. My parent’s first color TV was an RCA in 1965. I can date this because of the house and school I went to. Only about half the programs were in color back then. Seeing the Wizard of Oz in color was a really big deal back then as it was the ultimate demonstrator of the technology. I’m not sure why they emulated the campy format of Batman other than it was very successful. And as anyone can attest, these programs were done by splitting pennies down the middle. They would share monsters between the sets with a little paint thrown in for good measure. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/37 "2012-12-30T23:03:52Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > **The Straight Dope’s Dr. Seid: Bumbler or Evil?** > > 😛 > > (post links back to thread) Bumbler. :o Correct [link](http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1475936281/). ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/38 "2012-12-30T23:12:26Z")
After the third or fourth time Gilligan’s antics thwarted a chance at rescue, he would just mysteriously disappear. When rescued, everyone would just shake their heads, throw up their hands and say “I dunno, he just disappeared one day. We um, eventually assumed he went swimming and a shark got him or something. We just never saw any trace of him again!” Dr. Smith, I would just leave on one of those semi-habitable planets they seemed to run into every other week. I’m sure that, in time, the nylon bindings would loosen up and he’d have a chance to survive… ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/39 "2012-12-30T23:29:22Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Bumbler. :o > > Correct [link](http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1475936281/). **This video is not available in your country.** :mad: ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535/40 "2012-12-30T23:53:58Z")
This was such a terrible show. But I have an affection for it because it was on Sunday mornings and if I was watching it, I wasn’t in church. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-in-spaces-dr-smith-bumbler-or-evil/645535.md?page=3)