I remember watching reruns of Lost in Space on TV in the afternoons when I was a child. For a time, it was second only to I Love Lucy in syndicated viewership.
It was light and campy for a science fiction series, not nearly as cerebral as Star Trek — but it never really tried to be. It was the adventures of the Robinsons, a family of space colonists whose mission had been sabotaged and thrown off course.
Original concepts — and apparently there were at least two — called for them to be called the Space Family Robinson — a 20th–century spin on "The Swiss Family Robinson," the 19th–century novel about a family shipwrecked far from home. I thoroughly enjoyed that book when I was a boy, and I long since concluded that the TV series would have benefited from putting more emphasis on the family's ingenuity in conquering its obstacles. That may have been what I found so appealing about the novel.
By the time the series made it to TV, it was called Lost in Space.
When I saw the movie that premiered on this day in 1998, it had been quite awhile since I had seen any episodes of the series — a lot of it came back to me as I watched the movie — but the story was darker and more ominous than anything I ever remember seeing on the small screen.
While Lost in Space was fun to watch on TV, "Lost in Space" was not much fun on the big screen.
Part of the problem — for me, anyway — was the fact that there didn't seem to be anything terribly original about "Lost in Space." As one would expect from a movie made in the last 25 years or so, the special effects were flashy, but most appeared to have been lifted from previous successful films — like "Star Wars," "E.T." and "Close Encounters."
Maybe part of that was the casting, much of which was at odds with the casting of the TV series — and that was distracting, to put it mildly.
Take Gary Oldman, for example. I have long been impressed with his skill as an actor and the variety of the roles he has played. But Dr. Smith was just too much of a reach. I sort of feel that role will always be defined as Jonathan Harris' role, and Oldman just isn't the Jonathan Harris type. Of course, the beard didn't help, but that was a minor point.
In the TV series Dr. Smith was frequently the source of comic relief. I never got that sense from Oldman's Dr. Smith. He was more sinister and conniving. Any laughter his character provoked was nervous laughter.
Matt LeBlanc probably worked a little better as the pilot, Major West, but his problem is that he is probably defined (or was when "Lost in Space" premiered) as Joey on TV's Friends. That was his breakthrough role, and it made a lot of things possible for him, but sometimes that can be a double–edged sword.
The actors and actresses who played the Robinsons were all right, but not quite as charismatic, shall we say, as their predecessors.
Frankly, I was disappointed in the story.
