That's the feeling I get when I look back at the year 1965.
Not only was 1965 the year my hometown embraced racial desegregation in the public schools, it was the year America launched the First Family in Space!
"Lost in Space" - 1965
Nothing quite like Lost n Space had ever been attempted as a regularly scheduled television series before. Everyone involved in the LIS project lavished money on this series at amounts never seen before. Production costs for 20th Century Fox and broadcast obligations for CBS placed a tremendous financial burden on Lost in Space. The show had to be a hit with the viewing public.
The show's first season, filmed in black & white, began with such promise as a new space adventure show. But the series quickly turned into, from a critic at TV Guide Magazine, "a weekly show about an old man, a kid and a robot". The Robinson family was outfitted with all the tools, equipment and hardware to make colonizing a new planet possible, at least by 60's standards. The show had an interesting mix of machines to help the family travel and survive on an alien world. The Jupiter 2 spacecraft was literally a "flying Winnebago" in space!
Unfortunately, the writers chose to stick with the boy, the old man and the robot in predictable run-ins with, "the monster of the week", just like a kiddie Saturday afternoon matinee at the local movie theater from the 1940's.
At least the first three episodes from season one live up to the promise of the series. I still get a kick from the two new add-on characters in the pilot episode, Dr. Smith and the Robot.
I still love how Dr. Smith gets caught after re-programming the robot to destroy the Jupiter 2 eight hours after launch. Nice bit of clever lying in a sticky situation! Nice bit of karate but Kato on "The Green Hornet" could easily out maneuver Jonathan Harris, lol!
