Lost In Space: The Complete Adventures (Blu-ray) Available for Preorder (1 Viewer)

[Carabimero]

Sadness this week for me. I have been trying to watch LOST IN SPACE and find my attention wandering. I don't know if it's because I worked on the BD set and I'm just burned out with the show or what. I thought enough time had passed so I could watch it and enjoy it again. I hope I haven't outgrown it. With the exception of the early episodes and a few later ones, it's not a very good show, but the nostalgia factor has always kept it watchable for me. At least until now.

I'll try again in a couple of years and see how it goes. Man, it is a beautiful set, if I do say so myself. I hate to think I have outgrown it now that it finally looks so good.

 

[Blimpoy06]

I hate to think I have outgrown it now that it finally looks so good.

I've found a podcast called Alpha Control that covers each episode individually. I watch the episode and then listen to the comments for a fresh perspective. It's re-kindled my interest in the show. They talk to Irwin Allen guru Kevin Burns, and the music box set has an entire episode with an interview with Jeff Bond who worked on the set.
http://alphacontrolpodcast.libsyn.com/website

 

[Carabimero]

I've found a podcast called Alpha Control that covers each episode individually. I watch the episode and then listen to the comments for a fresh perspective. It's re-kindled my interest in the show. They talk to Irwin Allen guru Kevin Burns, and the music box set has an entire episode with an interview with Jeff Bond who worked on the set.
http://alphacontrolpodcast.libsyn.com/website

Thanks! I subscribed and am considering supporting them on Patreon. Just what I needed.

Listening to the magnificent boxed set soundtrack helps a ton, too.

 

[ScottRE]

I have found that with me I have to catch the bug to watch some of the shows now. I really need to be in the mood for them. However, having said that, there is a huge chunk of the second season that I never, ever want to see again.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I hope I haven't outgrown it. With the exception of the early episodes and a few later ones, it's not a very good show, but the nostalgia factor has always kept it watchable for me. At least until now.

Do you think the recent Netflix reimagining played any role in your changed feelings?

 

[Carabimero]

Do you think the recent Netflix reimagining played any role in your changed feelings?

That's a very good question. I honestly don't know. Consciously I believe it was all those years working on the Blu-ray set. That was an intense process where I got intimate with just about every frame of every episode. Every discrete track, every music cue, every sound effect, interviews, editing, you name it. Deconstruction like that has a way of tarnishing the magic.

The same thing happened when I spent two years working on The Fugitive Most Wanted Edition. It was years before I could watch the show again.

That said, your question remains a fascinating one that I shall continue to ponder. Thanks for asking.

 

[Ron Lee Green]

Definitely not a show I would binge on. It gets old real quick. That being said, I do get the urge once in a while to get "lost in space" with the Robinsons. Maybe once a week the way it originally aired is the way to go.

 

[JohnMor]

It is a BEAUTIFULLY done set that, sadly, served to remind me why I was never really a big fan of the show. The nostalgia factor proved strong with this one. But I don’t regret buying it as I was happy to support TV on dvd/blu-ray done right.

 

[Carabimero]

Definitely not a show I would binge on. It gets old real quick.

I agree with your assessment except for the first five episodes, through The Hungry Sea. I can binge watch those. I happen to believe those first five episodes, certainly up until that time, if not even later, are among the best episodic science fiction ever produced for network television.

 

[TJPC]

Warning! I’m going to be harsh here!

Let’s face it, the show was always crap. I watched it in first run with my family as a kid, but my mother, father and sister soon lost patience midway through the first season.

I used to force myself to always finish a full run of any show I started for some reason, so I continued to watch every nonsensical, repetitive, childish episode by myself, on an old black and white set in my room. I actually remember being releaved when it was over. I obviously never want to see the show again.

 

[Harry-N]

LOST IN SPACE...a true anomaly. It's at once great - and the silliest thing you'll ever see.

I suppose many of us are of the age that we viewed the series as youngsters, either first-run or in syndication. Either way, it had a fascination factor for us. We ate it up.

Today, it's almost a hard pill to swallow with its threadbare sets, silly alien costumes, and the antics of Dr. Smith. And yet there's still that fascination factor that keeps drawing us back in, even after all these years.

We spend hard-earned money on DVDs and Blu-rays so that we can watch the episodes over and over again - but we don't. Expressed recently is the *desire* to watch, but then reality sets in and the silliness factor overrides. I'm the same way. I'll settle down with a desire to watch an episode or two, but rarely get very far into it before I start getting itchy fingers to hit the remote control and start something else instead.

It was so different when we were kids or even teenagers as I was. There wasn't much science fiction on TV and yet we were all caught up in the new frontiers of space travels with real astronauts on Mercury and Gemini and the promise of Apollo to go to the moon. It was exciting times, and Irwin Allen tapped into that psyche with his LOST IN SPACE show.

Yes, those first four or five episodes that utilized footage from the original pilot are indeed amazing television. And then there were other glimpses of brilliance during some of the rest of that first black & white season. I loved those first few color episodes too. They almost bookend the first black & white episodes. And even some of season three is pretty good.

But much of season two is very, very hard to watch these days. When I put on an episode, I find myself admiring the colors and the detail in the Blu-ray, but not caring a whit for the silly story unfolding.

So, I felt this way even with the DVDs. Why buy the Blu-ray? It's that old fascination factor. A chance to almost escape back in time to a younger, more carefree time. And do so with the best possible presentation. I rarely pull out a LOST IN SPACE episode. But that audio blog/podcast sounds like it could be intriguing - and I just bet it will have me pulling out my Blu-rays again.

 

[Carabimero]

If I didn't have a very high nostalgia factor happening with LIS, I'd never watch a second of it, and I'd give a funny look to anyone who suggested I should. Thankfully, I have a high nostalgia factor for it. There are about fifteen episodes that I have always enjoyed. I like the cast. I like the robot. I like the music. Even so--even with the high nostalgia factor--the rest of the episodes are unwatchable. Totally agree.

 

[ScottRE]

Warning! I’m going to be harsh here!

Let’s face it, the show was always crap.

If you mean in terms of crap episodes, the series wasn’t always crap. it was often crap, but it wasn’t always crap. If you mean that it was good when we were kids and it’s crap now, then I agree. It was always crap, we just grew up and realized it. However the episodes that were genuinely good back then or still genuinely good now. I never allow the passage of time and the changing of styles to influence my view of a series.

I never liked “Mutiny In Space.” But will always love “Prisoners of Space” and “Wreck of the Robot.”

 

[TJPC]

As I think I may have said before, the show should have been called ”Lost On One Planet Per Season, that Basically Looks Like A Desert on A Soundstage”.

 

[B-ROLL]

As I think I may have said before, the show should have been called ”Lost On One Planet Per Season, that Basically Looks Like A Desert on A Soundstage”.

I'm pretty sure I saw the backdrop for the planet on season 2 in The Ox-Box Incident

 

[Flashgear]

Even as a 10 and 11 year old, I found season 2 to be truly excruciating...I remember being mad with what had been done to ruin a show that I had mostly loved in season 1. The show was simply awful, and I was no longer willing to give it a chance to (occasionally) prove me wrong. Part of the problem for me was that I was following the space program as closely as I could, thanks also to a teacher at school who wanted to watch as much of the daytime tv coverage as he could during school hours. Project Gemini...two guys in place of an H bomb riding a Titan II ICBM into space! I witnessed the excitement of Gemini 6 and 7 rendezvous (learning that word for the first time), with childhood heroes Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford closing their capsules to within one foot of each other in orbit! And the life threatening retro rocket malfunction that caused Gemini 8 to tumble out of control while docked to the Atlas Agena... Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott fighting for their lives to break free from the Agena and regain control of their tumbling Gemini capsule before they passed out from the extreme G forces...all of this easily beating the hell out of silly Lost in Space...although I was seriously in love with Angela Cartwright...

That said, I do agree that the first five episodes of season one are thrilling...I think most of season one is pretty good too...and thanks to some suggestions from my fellow HTF members (Alan and Scott) as to their favorite episodes from season 2 and 3, I have seen some of those for the first time in the splendid Blu ray complete series...but I was only going to buy it at a bargain price, which I did...glad to have the Blu ray set, but some of the discs will forever remain unwatched...

 

[Blimpoy06]

Lost In Space is a fun show. That's all I needed it to be. Escapism. I agree that Season 2 went too far in the camp area. The same fate The Man From U.N.C.L.E. succumbed to in it's third season. Both shows made an attempt to reverse the damages. I think Season 3 of Lost In Space contains most of my personal favorites. I certainly enjoy the theme more for the last year. And the on screen countdown was very exciting to me.
I have a fondness for a bit of Season 2 fluff. I've probably watched "A Visit To Hades" more than any other episode believe it or not. It might be because Don has more to do in the story than usual.

 

[RobertR]

Beyond the first few episodes, purely for the nostalgia factor, the show has no appeal to me. I remember eagerly anticipating it at the age of 11. By age 12, my enthusiasm was all but gone. It's silly on every level.

 

[mattfire64]

I personally think that writing the entire series off as "crap" is a bit too much. I definitely agree with Alan in that the first 5 episodes of Season 1 are some of the best Science Fiction written for 60s television, and I think that the rest of Season 1 is also very good if viewed more as "Fantasy" instead of "Science Fiction".

That being said, you can thank the popularity of time-slot rival Batman for all the extreme levels of camp that cropped up in the 2nd season. They did manage to turn it around somewhat for the final season, but the damage had been done to the show's credibility by that point. I still enjoy the show for what it is though, pure 60s escapism TV, and I think it's much more entertaining and original than the stale lifeless Netflix remake.

 

[ScottRE]

If the series had stayed straight while adopting sillier plots, like Voyage and Time Tunnel, I would have been fine. At least those shows kept their formats intact. LIS didn’t become “camp.” It went straight for fantasy comedy. They might as well have had a laugh track in the second season.

LIS was 5 distinct tv series. Each with its own emphasis.