THE
SHOW:
LOST IN SPACE made its premiere on September
15, 1965 as a deadly serious science fiction show, filmed in black and white.
Thirty months later, the show would end its run as a schizophrenic mix of camp
comedy, intermixed with some good science fiction plots, all filmed in living
color.
The standard histories of LOST IN SPACE blame the TV show Batman for
its descent into campiness; the studio bosses coming up with the syllogism:
1. Batman is a hit.
2. Batman is camp comedy.
3. Therefore, if we make our show camp comedy, it will be a hit.
The above reasoning didn't change just LOST IN SPACE; the producers
of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. followed the same specious reasoning.
It isn't really fair to dismiss LOST IN SPACE as merely camp comedy:
every episode had something going for it.
One episode that a lot of fans hate was "The Questing Beast,"
written by Carey Wilber. Yes, the show had a hokey dragon costume, enhanced
by June Foray's cartoony voice. But if you dug deeper, you could see what the
episode was really about: Losing childhood innocence, keeping one's word, honor,
and standing up for what is right. Not a bad mix of messages for a camp TV show!
In fact, watching the old LOST IN SPACE episodes, I often get the desire
to go back in time, to do one rewrite before the shows came onto the air, taking
out the silly stuff. But, given the above, maybe that rewriting would have damaged
the show's appeal.
Too many science fiction fans think that science fiction should be
consumed with a scowl on your face (naturally, for years LOST IN SPACE was attacked
by SF fans, particularly Star Trek fans), and that's a sad thing.
What's wrong with a little silliness, I say! In the end, what made
LOST IN SPACE popular, I think, was its very schizophrenia: each episode, at
times, seemed to start from scratch: one week, the show was camp humor, the
next, camp humor with profound insights, and after that, serious science fiction/adventure.
The main rule was that there were no rules, and that makes the show all the
more appealing.
Flint Mitchell is the president of the LOST IN SPACE Fannish AlliaNce
(LISFAN). When not preoccupied with LOST IN SPACE, he runs a small mail order
business, and writes books.
BROADCAST HISTORY:
