The Sword and Laser discussion

Netflix is bringing back the cult tv series, Lost in Space. Link to the Vanity Fair article below:

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2...

Interesting. I watched some of the original episodes a few weeks back and they really are ridiculous. But man, that Jupiter II is still one of the all-time great spaceships. The show has great potential, which I think makes it a prime candidate for a remake.

And the original series is still great for kids. Each episode is a little morality tale.

A couple decades ago on Usenet I posted an outline of how I would update Lost in Space (you can probably still find it, although I don't have a newsreader any more) and a few years after that someone made a pilot that was -- coincidentally, I'm sure -- extremely similar to my idea.

Except it's really clunky. Here's Part 1: http://youtu.be/VAT4tjjzOCk

If daughter Judy looks familiar, that's because she's currently on Agents of SHIELD as Agent Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird.

The first half season of LiS was decent science fiction, not much below the level of Star Trek. But those were the episodes produced before the show went on the air. Once the producers saw the audience reaction, however, they realized that what people were responding to most were Doctor Smith, Will Robinson and the Robot, and the later episodes shifted focus in that direction. (This is the main reason William Shatner was such a shit about making sure Kirk always had more dialogue than Spock -- he didn't want to end up like poor Guy Williams who'd gone from the star of his own show to playing second fiddle to a kid, a campy old man, and a guy in a robot suit.)

Also around the same time, the Batman TV series premiered and became a huge hit, so Irwin Allen tried to copy the formula by making LiS even campier. But his plan backfired when Batmania burned itself out LiS was left looking cheesy and ridiculous. By that point it was too late to reverse course, and the show ended up getting canceled after the third season.

How you can update a mess like that, I have no idea. Do you try to make it serious like the show was originally supposed to be, or do you copy the campiness and make it a comedy?

I went with serious, because that's the part I liked.

The basic outline I proposed went like this (some of this changed after my original post back in the 90s):

The Robinsons are one family among hundreds on the first colony ship headed for an alien habitable planet.

The colony ship is a modular design, essentially a framework which carries the landing craft of the colonists. Basically each lander is a giant version of an Apollo capsule, except it's equipped with all of the essentials a homesteader might need on an alien planet. Each section of the ship is named after a planet, such as the Mars section, the Saturn section, and so on. Each lander is simply numbered. This is where we get the name "Jupiter II" from, the lander assigned to the Robinsons.

All of the colonists will be in hibernation while the ship is maintained by a variety of robots.

A small but significant faction of humanity is against the colonization project, for a variety of reasons: financial, religious, political, etc.

A fanatical subset of the opposition intends to stop the project by any means necessary. They infiltrate the crew and sabotage the ship while it is en route.

The ship disintegrates near a different alien planet other than their intended destination.

The adult Drs. Robinson are awakened by pilot Don West, who was on the Emergency Response Team in case of an accident. He realizes what's happened and assigns some robots to check the Jupiter II as well as landers nearby for explosives.

Don is dating Judy, of course, which is why he beelined for the J2.

As the colony ship disintegrates, individual landers collide and become damaged, either flung off into space or tumble toward the planet where they burn up.

West uses the maneuvering thrusters to clumsily but effectively steer the J2 out of harm's way. He manages to get it properly oriented to land on the planet, but they're still not under control.

The J2 lands hard and is damaged, but everyone survives. Wreckage from the colony ship is spread across half the planet.

They get the kids out of hibernation and assess the damage. Most of the stuff they need to survive has been destroyed, but their vehicle survived intact.

They begin scavenging the things they need from nearby wrecked landers, as well as doing the grim task of burying the bodies of their friends and fellow colonists.

They discover one of the maintenance robots has survived on a crashed lander. Will is able to repair it.

They also repair their communications and immediately receive a distress signal from one of the other landers.

West, John and Judy set off in the Chariot on a rescue mission, while the others remain behind to continue fixing up the J2.

The rescue team encounters the inimical life indigenous to the planet.

Will and the robot, B9, keep exploring. They discover evidence of an ancient alien civilization and try to puzzle out the things they've discovered.

Eventually the rescue team finds the nearly-destroyed Mars VII, which is sheltering two survivors: another ERT member, Annelise Karlsson, and a colonist Dr. Zachary Smith. (Dun dun dun.) Both are injured.

On their way back to the J2, Karlsson discovers that Smith is one of the terrorist fanatics. Smith kills her before she can warn the others, claiming she died of her injuries.

Meanwhile, Penny figures out how to operate the device Will found and it starts showing holograms. They assume they're watching fancy advertisements or news stories. Maureen realizes one pertains to an advanced propulsion drive... and that the schematics are included. If they can decipher them, they can build it and continue on. Or at the very least get a message back to Earth.

Once the rescue team returns, they show them what they've found. Everyone is very excited. Smith is excited for a different reason: his terrorist group can use the technology to destroy any opposition. He sets in motion plans to betray the Robinsons by reprogramming the robot to kill them all once they have built the device.

End of 2-hour pilot.

Intriguing premise.

The original Dr. Smith was an odd duck of a character, being not only the show's primary villain but the comic relief as well. Can't help but wonder which direction they'll take him, or if they'll try to have him multitask both roles as per the original series. I wouldn't think so (Harris's popularity and breakout status as Dr. Smith was a bit of a happy accident, like Urkel's on Family Matters), but stranger things have happened.