Lost in Space: Season 1 Officially Announced - UPDATE & APOLOGY ADDED 10/8 (1 Viewer)

[DouglasRobert]

DVD Planet has just listed Lost in Space: Season 1 up for pre-order.

Here are some details.

8 Disc Set
Release Date: 1-6-2004
$79.98
1568 Minutes
Includes Un-Aired Pilot :No Place to Hide: & CBS Network Presentation.

Just go to DVD Planet and click on Recent Additions and you will find it listed.

 

[Mark_TS]

I am so glad. Finally! except being in color could ruin things

 

[Joshua Clinard]

I wouldn't count that as an official announcement. What probably happened is that DVD Planet got a pre-order sheet, which are usually just predictions about features & price. Then they added that information to the site.

But they list it as coming out in color! I am guessing that is wrong. Fox would not give us a Colorized Lost in Space, would they? That would be rediculous! Ron Epstien would have a cow. I would expect an official announcement in the next month.

 

[Heinz W]

I'll certainly be picking up Season 1, but not 2 or 3. Unless of course it's in color! :frowning:

 

[Geoff_D]

The 'CBS Network Presentation' (running for just over five minutes) was passed by the BBFC on the 4th of September. Looks like the set's coming on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

[David Lambert]

Everything I've heard says Black-and-White. Relax for now; it's probably just an minor error at the e-tailer site.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Price was gonna determine this one for me. $79.98 is too much for me for this show. I'll pass and wait for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

 

[Craig S]

While the $80 list seems a little high, it's right in line with other Fox sets of hour-long shows. "Buffy", "Angel", "NYPD Blue" are all $60 list for 6 discs. Remember, S1 of LiS has some 29 episodes (if I am counting correctly) as opposed to the standard 22-24 for current series. $80 for 8 discs is about as good as we could expect. Should be available for about $55 on street date from the various discount retailers.

 

[Jeff_HR]

I only watched the 1st season when this was originally telecast. After season one it turned silly. If I buy at all it will be just season one, and that is no certainty at this point in time.

 

[Craig S]

I hope the following is not taken as a thread fart, because it's not meant to be. Bear with me.

After season one it turned silly.

Let's tell the truth here - it was silly from the get go.

Now, I was a HUGE LiS fan back in the 60s. I was the perfect age - 8 - when it hit the airwaves. Between LiS & "Batman", I was one happy kid.

As the years passed (and memory faded), I always subscribed to the popular belief that the first season of B&W eps were pretty good SciFi adventure, and that the silliness (operatic space vikings and giant carrots) began in S2.

About 5 years ago a friend of mine was given the first 6 episodes on VHS for Christmas. After he watched them he lent them to me, and I eagerly popped 'em into the VCR. It had been well over 25 years since I had seen any of these episodes and I was excited to revisit the past.

Wow. If there was ever an object lesson in how you can never go back again, this was it. In so many ways LiS was a bad, cheesy show. Ludicrous scripts, bad dialog, lame effects & weak production values abound. No wonder my parents used to roll their eyes whenever I rushed to the set and turned LiS on.

And these were the "good" episodes!!

What saved the experience for me were the characters. The stalwart John Robinson, dashing Don, the perfect space Mom June, the good daughters Judy & Penny - all were as I remembered them. Best of all were what became the show's triumverate - the inquisitive Will Robinson (what 8-year old boy in 1965 did NOT want to be Will Robinson???), the Robot, and one of TV's most indelible villains, Dr. Smith. What I saw were a bunch of pretty good actors doing their best with lame material and making the damn thing work.

The funny thing is, even after that, I'll likely be picking up at least S1. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, isn't it? At least this time I'll be prepared to enjoy LiS again on its own terms.

 

[Randy Korstick]

I agree Craig after watching the whole series on VHS a few years back I actually like Season One the least. Sure it was the closest to serious Sci-Fi that the show got but IMHO seriousness did not work well for this show alot of the 1st season shows are boring and not alot of fun. The campy silliness of the show is what made it fun and what it is remembered for. Also the show works better with the wild 60's psychedelic colors. I may just buy Season 2 and 3 but I'm still up in the air on this one. I prefer Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Land of the Giants.

 

[DerekL]

It's possible that some of the unaired pilot show might be in colour. The SFX were shot in colour so that they could be used again later if the show was ever produced in colour, which it eventually was. I'm looking forward to seeing the first season which IMO was the best. Although some of the stories were silly, there were some excellent shows on how the Robinson's coped and survived in their new environment. And the B/W certainly gave the show a darker atmosphere (no pun intended) and further added to the mysterious nature of the planet.

 

[Tom Boucher]

RE: Cheesy that wasn't Cheesy when you were young.

Space 1999 did that for me. i remember being facinated with the show when I was a wee one.

I bought the first two box sets and went to watch the first episode.

oh. my. god. How cheesy was that. It was so bad and my wife and her sarcastic comments had me selling them on half.com

That being said, I ordered my copy of this.

 

[Mark_TS]

I have the unaired pilot NO PLACE TO HIDE on tape from Columbia house.
It is BW, the ship is called Gemini 12, there is no Dr Smith, the robot was just a robot, no lower level to the ship, music was culled from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, and that one episode was cut up and padded out to make the first four episodes when it went weekly, so it is jam-packed with ADVENTURE!

They did film the Chariot roving scenes in color for future use for when the series went color, but in season two they were always ship-set bound and almost never used it except as a stagebound prop that they were always repairing, but never seen travelling in.

In fact, the cool thing about Season one, is that they travelled around the planet and saw its wonders-in season two they were always around or near the Jupiter2...Season 3 tried, but never quite got it-it went from floating green girls in space to vegetable men. Wonder what the almost approved season 4 would have been like...Some CBS execs wife wanted GUNSMOKE(?) to stay on, so instead of cancelling that -they cancelled LIS to make room...

I remember being totally entranced by the show-it was at the time the first serious space adventure show had come on TV.
Serious by 1965 standards, with some decent SPFX and set designs.
And the BW gave it a dark, alien, noir tone....

 

[Eric Paddon]

I think when people say the first season was less silly what they really mean is the first several episodes, where Dr. Smith is more a real villain and less of a comical figure, and there is also a nice sense of continuity between episodes that was quite rare for TV in those days (look at how everything in Star Trek is so self-contained where an episode from one week never impacts events in subsequent episodes).

 

[Mark_TS]

Lets just say that the series was serious adventure the first few episodes-changing to drama, wimsy, and adventure intermixed after that.
THEN became silly fantasy in Season 2 and 3. I remember being on a high watching LIS until episode 5 or 6 when you could just FEEL that the tone suddenly changed-but then there was still exploration and adventure..
Still, S1 holds up better than the silly color seasons...imho.

Here is perhaps some bad news on the transfers.
Seems that FOX is getting cold feet, worried about poor sales, ala the MTM set, so they are making this a budget release, with old Laserdisc, and Columbia HouseVHS transfers as masters:

http://jupiter2.freeyellow.com/root/lisdvdt.htm

Surely they should know that this popular sci-fi series will sell very well-at least the first season...-look how well the very expensive laserdisc boxes did in Japan-all 3 seasons.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

This is sort of odd.

Just came back from a meeting at Twentieth
Century Fox studios.

I explicitly asked about Lost In Space

No official date has been set for this release
yet. I was told that it would be out sometime
2004, though.

I would highly doubt a January release. From
the conversation I had with Fox, it seems that
the production of the DVD set isn't nearly
ready to go yet.

 

[Mark_TS]

IF in fact the set is delayed past January -this could be a sign of QC rethinking issues, and maybe of hope.

Lets hope FOX will give LIS first class treatment.

 

[Nick Eden]

In Mark's post above there is a link to a web page re LIS and Kevin Burns and on this page we are urged to write to 20th Century Fox. My question is, does anyone have an e-mail address for Peter Staddon or Fox?
To be honest with you, if Fox are having cold feet about producing a too expensive box set of LIS, which they fear will not sell, I know that I would prefer the best possible (and hopefully new) transfers of the series to appear on DVD and that all extras be left off the DVDs. In an ideal world I would like both, but this may not be possible. What we don't want is LIS season 1 to come out and then nothing (as with Mary Tyler Moore). It needs to sell well so that the following 2 seasons of LIS appear and so that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants also appear.

 

[David Lambert]

I really don't see what encouragement Fox needs to release this, as the series remains popular. It has a cult following (me included), and is highly requested. At TVShowsOnDVD, for example, it is one of the top 4% most-requested shows.

The thoughts of the Mary Tyler Moore Show might be what is causing Fox to stay low on the extras (and perhaps to not invest too much money in the remastering). The official release info from Fox says it has a list price of $79.98 on S1. Even though BestBuy.com currently (and insanely) lists this release for $99.99 ( ...gotta be a mistake, right?), the likes of Amazon, DVDPlanet, and DVDEmpire are showing a much saner price of $55.99 to $59.99...worthwhile for an 8-disc set, eh? (BB.com says "6-pc", but if by "pc" they mean disc then that is wrong too.)

SciFi fans will probably pay $60 or under for this set. I think - my opinion, mind you - that this configuration will sell. Would I prefer a definative video experience (in other words, expensive remastering) and loads of extras? Yes sir, of course I would! However, if doing so drives the price up to the point where S1 doesn't sell, and threatens a S2 release from happening, then I will take what I can get. I think most LiS fans would agree.

In fact, I think MTMS fans would agree, in retrospect.


As a side note, I posted a news item on this subject at TVShowsOnDVD, linking back to this thread and to Ron's quotes. Thanks for the info, Ron.