Lost in Space: Season 01  (1965)

Theatrical Release Information:
Lost in Space: Season 01

Filmed in black-and-white, the first season of Lost in Space took itself more seriously than subsequent seasons -- at least at the outset. Set in 1997, the series began as the Robinsons, a family of space travelers preparing for a five-year exploratory voyage to the Alpha Centauri star system in the "Jupiter II." Unfortunately, an enemy spy named Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) intends to sabotage the mission and kill the family, with help of his malevolent robot. But when the Jupiter II blasts off, Dr. Smith is trapped inside the vehicle with his intended victims: Prof. John Robinson (Guy Williams); his wife, Maureen (June Lockhart); his children, Judy (Marta Kristen), Will (Bill Mumy), and Penny (Angela Cartwright), and ship's pilot Don West (Mark Goddard). Thanks to Smith's dirty work, the ship veers way off course to an unchartered planet where the Robinsons et. al. will spend the remainder of the season. It had been intended to kill off both Dr. Smith and the evil robot after the first five-episode story arc; instead, the robot "reforms" and becomes an unending fount of valuable information for the space castaways, periodically bursting forth with cries of "Warning! Warning!" and "Danger! Danger!" and dealing with matters beyond his ken by muttering metallically, "That does not compute." As for Smith, he evolves from snarling villain to cowardly buffoon, whom the others inexplicably tolerate, even though Smith's perfidy and duplicity causes nothing but trouble for them. The notion to "serialize" the episodes is dropped early on in favor of self-contained stories, though each episode ends with a cliff-hanging preview of the following week's installment. Unlike the next two seasons of Lost in Space, guest stars are kept at a minimum during season one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide