Date of release: April 13, 2018 (Netflix)
Those episodes keep reminding me of other works of science-fiction. The robot does THE IRON GIANT pretty good, while Smith could be a pretty solid Gaius Baltar if she would decide to be a little more conflicted about what she is doing, instead of looking on and hoping that her manipulative behavior works, turning her into an upright villain who can be nothing else than being the villain. This episode made sure that I was constantly reminded of the 1990s sci-fi show EARTH 2, which I am currently watching as well, as the survivors finally banded together and made it their mission to be seen by the Resolute. Besides that, the show is pretty much the family business from TERRA NOVA stuck inside the potential of THE 100, being chased by monsters from THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (Penny being sniffed out by the dinosaur-like moth monster very much reminded me of that movie when the T-Rex was sniffing out Julianne Moore’s character in the tent), but never reaching full potential because all of these previous science-fiction works meddle together to form an incoherent blob that wants to be all of it.
Granted, LOST IN SPACE is still fun to watch and it has its tense and action-packed moments, and while it has a clear focus on the narrative and its main characters, it is also noticeable that the family business is keeping the show’s greater story arc down. And the producers only wanted one thing: to appease entire families. It partially works, but it also hinders the story from going full-on nuts in certain places when the science-fiction genre calls for it. In hindsight, it turns out that LOST IN SPACE is missing its uniqueness, as it makes sure the audience knows it has been gifted with life thanks to the previous works of science-fiction, both in television and in film.
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| Maureen is taking a well-deserved rest after being dragged through the countryside by a balloon. |
This episode might have been the one with the most bullcrap yet. I have no idea what Smith was doing most of the time and I have no idea if she was happy about what she saw at the end, or if she was disappointed because things did not work out quite as she hoped. I guess shutting off the perimeter fence was the first step to bringing the robot back into play, and she has definitely understood that Will’s state of emotion is connected to the robot (so, pushing a bunch of fear into him might have brought back the robot, which is a success for her), but I don’t know why Smith figured she needed the robot to be common knowledge among the survivors. If she wanted to use it to get back to the Resolute, maybe it could have been kept secret like the weapon she stole from Will (by the way, he has not noticed yet?).
I don’t know if there is a narrative connection between Smith manipulating the robot back into action, and playing a rift between John and Will, when the only thing that should happen from here on is that Will’s connection to the robot has been made public with the other survivors and the robot is, therefore, more trusted among the colonists. Wouldn’t that mean Smith has failed in her plan to manipulate the robot and Will, or is it all part to make sure the robot is accepted by the survivors, so Smith won’t look as dangerous and murderous when she gets back to the Resolute? Maybe she even has a bunch of contingency plans, in case some of them don’t work out. I guess her mission in this episode was to bring the robot back to play – but what will her master plan look like in retrospect, when things have played out? Will this episode make sense to me then?
Meanwhile, Maureen’s adventure was cool. It had a bit of VERTICAL LIMIT in it (well, “Horizontal Limit,” to be precise) when she was dragged almost down a cliff by the balloon, because there can never be not another Hollywood movie or TV show this show reminds me of, and I was quite impressed by the fact that she made it into the upper atmosphere and was able to check out the star and the problem the survivors are facing. In addition to that, problems coming with the star’s radiation are a nice way to make sure that some of the problems that will beleaguer the colonists aren’t monster-related and the writers can bring in some true, possibly hard science-fiction, which is always a great thing to do. Sometimes it is just universal nature that gives you the boot from life.
Then there was also this thing about the episode that turned out to be a little smelly, as Judy and Penny were thrust into individual storylines – one that didn’t have an outcome in this episode and the other that is TERRA NOVA’s Maddy, only a bit better because it was written by Netflix show writers that seemed to care a little more about their characters, as they are not being clogged down by network notes this much. I really hated Maddy’s romance plot in TERRA NOVA and now it looks like I am about to get something similar in LOST IN SPACE with Penny. Please, get me away from this nightmare, because I cannot handle teenage romance in science-fiction stories.
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| Watch out for the sudden pain! |
I can only hope a couple more monsters will attack in the season finale and eat some people. It might help to make the Robinsons sole survivors again, even if that won’t make a show. I was a bit more interested in Judy developing mistrust of Smith, but the story was pretty much forgotten midway through. At least tell us whether Judy believed Smith’s lies, or if Judy started believing something is rotten in the state of Denmark. She could have at least conversed with Don about how weird and mysterious and how much of a liar Smith could be, which would spell out “danger.”
But hey, as long as there is a robot fighting two monsters... I could see that the writers wanted to work towards that cool-looking moment, but I am already over it. Technically and visually it looked pretty stunning (of course it happened during darkness, because if you light that stuff out a little more, it gets expensive to produce those visual effects), but that is not why I decided to watch the show. I can watch PACIFIC RIM for that. I want a little more of the Robinsons, who may have gotten through some of that solid family drama stuff in the previous episode, but as long as that family drama stuff remains mainstream, it will continue to be boring, like it was in this episode, when John and Will attempted a father/son conversation and failed to do so.
