Date of release: December 24, 2019 (Netflix)
written by: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless
directed by: Alex Graves
In which the season starts on the high sea, and the family of spacemen and women become sailors. I always like it when a television show with a simple, but exact, premise decides to circle around it and deliver something entirely else for an episode and maybe even an entire story arc. LOST IN SPACE becomes “Lost on Sea” and this science-fiction space family show became an oceanic adventure, during which the characters had to face storms, monsoons, and sharp reefs to get to the desired place of hope and rescue. And besides that, this episode was like its counterpart that is the series premiere: The characters and the Jupiter 2 have crash-landed on a planet and they cannot just fly off of it. They have to use their wits and talents as a team of family members to figure out a solution and get off this rock, and this time around they do not have the help of the robot to free a trapped Judy Robinson. And if this season wanted to mirror the previous season, then it will take the Robinsons, Don West, and Smith three episodes to get off of it and towards their new adventure, because a season ago, it took the Robinsons three episodes to finally find their way to the other survivors and hope for life on a planet that was counting down to its final minutes.
Focusing on the central characters in its first episodes could not
have been a better idea for this series. Granted, this episode began
with the crew on the Resolute, who were met by two fist-fighting robots
crashing through their hull, but the remainder of these 48 minutes was
like the series premiere: Robinson-centered action, only this time with the added
bonus of Don West and Smith being part of the crew, which means which
characters that will get attention and screentime during this season
will join the Robinsons on their fight for survival during the third
season premiere. Or at least I hope they will.
 |
| Now that the book is out, it is time to adapt it into a screenplay. |
I also loved how streamlined this episode was. One half of the episode was a good-old family life on a probably deserted planet with no oxygen to breathe and no H2O to drink (so, what was the ocean water made out of if not oxygen and hydrogen?), and the other half was a sailing adventure with threats coming at the characters from left, right, in front, behind, and above. They could almost count themselves lucky that there were no big and hungry beasts in the water, otherwise, the threats would also have come from below and this episode would have turned into the LOST IN SPACE version of EUROPA REPORT. One half was about reminding the audience that this is still an adventure show for the entire family, and the other was here to give us an example of how exciting the show can be when it decides to fill our minds with fun action and exciting visuals. The first half served the family aspects of the premise, in focusing on how the Robinsons are now a team of survivors and experts in living a life on a planet that does not support human life, and the second half went back to what this re-imagination of the LOST IN SPACE franchise is about. In a way, nothing this episode did was wrong and to a fault and everything it did was fun entertainment for the entire household. The question is now if the entire season can keep it up like this or if there will be episodes that drag the survival aspect to the final episodes of the season, while the writers put the characters into a more emotional turmoil.
This episode was also clearly a season premiere, since none of the characters had issues with one another, and conflicts seemingly did not exist. The series premiere started with a troubled marriage and a difficult relationship between John and his kids, due to the backstory delivered in flashbacks over the course of the following episodes. But this season began with a clean slate, in which the Robinsons have buried all their conflicts, in which John and Maureen are back to being a solid married couple who take care of their kids and who just want to get back to being a normal family in normal circumstances. The kids do not hate each other, which you think might be the case after spending seven months together on a tiny strip of beach while waiting to find out how to get the heck off this planet – in fact, Will did not get an angry fist in his face after he decided to give Penny the Christmas gift of her memoir being read out loud, which I would have thought was an invasion of her privacy. Who knows if Penny really wanted to write a memoir about her experiences as a member of the Robinson family lost in space, but maybe what Will actually “published” was her diary. For a quick second, I found it a little weird that Penny unexpectedly and surprisingly heard her work being handed around like it was the beginning of a wonderful career as a writer.
But then again, this might give Penny an edge as a character – as a documentarian, she could become more interesting, as it is a premise that has not been depicted in adventure stories. It is how I sometimes daydream myself into big space missions: Since I cannot be the scientific or medical expert or a fighter, I will be the one with a notebook and camera in hand, because someone needs to document everything that is happening, for the folks on Earth to learn about.
Then there are Don West and Smith, with one maybe having an agenda and the other just talking to non-human objects and subjects all the time and voluntarily giving away his last bottle of whiskey (which is so shocking that I would call it a misrepresentation of Don’s character, but who knows what happened during the previous seven months). Smith leveled up as an intriguing character in this episode, as she does not have to be just a villain now. She can be disturbed and evil, and help the Robinsons survive, all while the writers can slowly figure out what her deal is and what she wants. Yes, maybe she did contaminate the greenhouse to force the Robinsons to make the decision to leave this place, and maybe Smith did it to just kill everyone and be known as the evil monster who does not care about anyone.
 |
| The ship has sailed to its resting place for the day. |
That is a question I find interesting about her at this moment, because the opportunity to plant the character on a path to redemption is there, all while she could also continue to manipulate the Robinsons and break them apart (as evident through Penny, who listened to Smith and not her mother) for whatever reason. Parker Posey is still perfect for the role, and here is hoping the writers knew what they were doing with the character and planned ahead with her story. The first season had her hiding from the impromptu law on the Resolute, which is why she lied and cheated her way through the survivors, but now that all her darkest secrets are out in the open, there should not be a reason for her to still be evil. Which is why she must just be nuts – certifiably so.
