Joe Karlosi

If anyone can't tolerate watching Dr. Smith (as played by Jonathan Harris)I find it very difficult to comprehend how you can watch any of the episodes at all - he's practically the whole show!

Dane Marvin

I think that's a lame attitude since we were talking about how the characters in LiS are sometimes hard to believe. That's like saying sci-fi shows don't have to have believable characters simply because the technical aspects of these shows could never really happen or will not happen anytime soon.

That's like saying that writers of a show needn't bother with writing and developing great and realistic characters as long as there are plenty of cool ships and space monsters to blind us with. I think that's just wrong.

Think of another classic sci-fi show like The Twilight Zone. It was always at its best when (A) a very believable character was (B) thrust into an unbelievable situation. That was the winning formula.

At least half of any show worth a salt boils down to characterization. That includes sci-fi shows. That includes family-oriented sci-fi shows.

That said, I like LiS, but Smith drives me nuts about 75% of the time. I can't wait until he lightens up.

Paul_Scott

which explains why i haven't rushed out to pick this set up yet.

and i agree with Dane.
the rest of the familys attitude towards a character that is repeatedly putting their children, and the rest of them, in danger is...exasperating.
and consequently, its hard for me to must much investment in the outcome of a particular episodes story when this aspect is so contrived.

it exhausts my affection for the material

Steve_AS

They are??? I hadn't noticed.



No, it's not like saying either of those things. It's really like saying, LiS has had a reputation for being rather ridiculous for something like 40 years now...so to lambaste it now for its primitive characterizations and
half-baked plots, is kind of missing the point. No one's ever made claims to the contrary, AFAIK.





To single out the *Dr. Smith* character makes no sense to me , given the tenor of your complaints above. If anything, after he 'lightens up' his character becomes even *more* nonsensical and *less* believable.

Mark_TS

bandwidth exceeded to view the space pod? oh well.

If true,that Season 2 & 3 are being given the green light, then we may yet see a VOYAGE~THE SEA box-and I know those will have to be remastered, as all the dupes used on SciFi and Columbia House are in terrible shape. _

The classic Seaview in some of the best close-up detail shots ever.

"He who panics first gets at least some of his money back." -KD

"He who panics first gets at least some of his money back." -KD

Dane Marvin

I singled him out at the bottom of that post, yes, because his is the character that drives me crazy. I didn't say that the actions of the Robinson family are entirely without question. The fact that they trust their children around Smith and that they haven't permanently frozen him is beyond me. Sometimes it seems like the only characters with half a brain in their head are Don and Will.

Does this make me hate the show? No. Does it make it one of the greatest shows of all time? No. Does it make for entertaining viewing to watch and laugh at what these people are doing? Yes. Does it mean I can watch Dr. Smith and not cringe? No. Not hardly.

Joe Karlosi

Possibly at the time the show was made there wasn't as much talked or thought about regarding children in the grips of "suspicious" adults and all of that. I mean, today everything's Michael Jackson, pedophilia, etc.

It's certainly questionable as to why the family continues to allow Smith to live, hang around or whatever -- but I've always found Guy Williams' John Robinson as a man of great patience and tolerance. Perhaps the God-Awful 1998 feature film could have better addressed such concerns; after all, it featured a dysfunctional 90s family and missed the whole heart of the series anyway.

Anyway, with a show about a flying saucer setting off in 1997 (!?) and meeting absurd looking monsters and things, I can suspend further disbelief regarding the tolerance for Smith's character. And Smith winds up turning into a lovable sort of nuisance, anyway. Less dangerous.

David Lambert

As long as we're debating the unbelievable aspects of the show, as a parent now I must cringe every time those kids just run off and do stuff that out-and-out disobeys the orders of their parents. As a kid it was fun to see kids smart enough to go out an try to accomplish things, even though they put themselves in danger. Now, as an adult and a father, I just cannot believe the lack of discipline.


It's easier for me to justify that they had a hard time deciding to kill, lock up, or abandon Dr. Smith because he was a fellow human being. As a former manager I can recollect so many times when someone who's on their "last chance" acts good for just long enough that, when they do mess up again, it's hard to execute them on that "final strike" threat you gave them, because it's been so long since the threat was issued. Smith was obviously a coward, too, and "needed protecting".

However, I don't understand why they let him keep the robot under his control for so long at the beginning. Why not pull the power-pack and keep it until they were sure his programming had been undone?


As my dad used to say, "What is it that way? Because it's in the script..."

DAVE/Memphis, TN

...Want to see your favorite show on DVD?