Lost in Space was a television show which ran for three seasons from 1965.

The show was more successful that it should have been, perhaps, because people like the interplay between Dr. Smith, the young Will Robinson and the robot. Here’s an interview where the late Jonathan Harris speaks about the effect on Guy Williams when he, Harris, became the star of the show which Williams (as John Robinson) was expected to have been.

I enjoyed the original show because I loved the robot as I explained in my old blog.

in 2018 Netflix released a new version of Lost in Space. We’ve had two seasons now and apparently (like the original series) there will be only three.

Here are five things which I hate about this remake:

1) The Robot

In the original series the Robot is one of the central characters. He is funny and wise and useful. In the new series he is none of these things. They decided that he would be more interesting if he didn’t speak and was uncooperative, unpredictable and threatening all of the time. This was a mistake imho.

2) Dr. Smith

The writers decided that Dr. Smith should be a woman in this remake. That’s not a problem, but they decided that she should be an almost entirely unsympathetic character. Actually she’s not even Dr. Smith, but is someone who has assumed that identify. And she has murdered at least one person. So of the three central characters in the original series we now have two of these who are basically evil!

3) The life-or-death puzzles

Every week there seems to be some kind of dangerous puzzle which the characters have to solve in order to stay alive. These are completely pointless and uninteresting. I can’t really give examples of the puzzles as I just fast forward through this part in every episode. This is a complete waste of time.

4) John and Don survive the destruction of their ship

During season 1, John and Don are killed when their ship explodes in episode 8. But two episodes later they are successfully rescued because they survived the explosion and have been able to cling to some wreckage in space all this time! This is just ridiculous. I don’t think there was even any attempt at explaining this! But rescuing them became yet another of these life-or-death puzzles (which I didn’t watch).

5) Penny’s dialogue

In an attempt to attract teenage viewers, I assume, there quite a bit of awful dialogue which seems to centre around Penny and her relationships. I don’t know much about this because I fast forward through this as well.

So there you have it. Five reasons why I hate Lost in Space.

Even though I have watched the first two seasons, I think this is the only TV show I have ever watched where I fast forward through a substantial part of each episode. I just don’t care what is happening in those parts!

The only bright spot in the show is that I like Molly Parker and the way she plays Maureen Robinson.

I understand that the show has been renewed by Netflix for a fourth “and final” season.

Here is a video which shows the relationship between Smith and the Robot on the original series: