Date of release: December 24, 2019 (Netflix)
written by: Liz Sagal
directed by: Leslie Hope
In which the series delivered a ghost ship episode. This was to be
presumed right after the Jupiter 2 was unable to radio the Resolute or
no one was answering back, and that the writers decided to depict no
scenes from inside the Resolute about how its crew was anticipating the
return of the Robinsons after being lost in space for seven months. And
when I realized that this episode would be about the Robinsons walking
through a ghost ship in the search for clues about what happened, I was
hoping to get a bit of horror and thrill with the premise. So much can
be done with creepy noises and dark hallways with flickering lights, I
was almost disappointed that the hour managed to not deliver on it at
all. Then I realized that LOST IN SPACE is still a family show and that
there will probably never be a scene that goes full-on horror.
Not that I was expecting S.A.R., who was identified by its codename
“Scarecrow” (so, it was not the robot that was fought by Will’s robot in
outer space during the first season finale?), to rip apart the free-roaming horse on the space station,
but at least a couple of screaming children and teenagers running away
from the crawling robot and stumbling over their feet or some loose
cable would have done it. Just some of the sheer chaos that would come out of people running from a murder robot.
At least this episode tried to be suspenseful, making me remember the good and creepy parts of movies like EVENT HORIZON and the first ALIEN. Hallways that are dark or have flickering lights, monsters that could be behind every corner (it is a good thing that the evil crawling robot had a red face and illuminated most of the dark ship, which made it easily trackable from the bridge of the Jupiter 2), and random stuff that seems to always appear in these kinds of horror stories. Only LOST IN SPACE came up short regarding the horror genre.
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| You do not have the time to find out what the heck happened here. |
Still, It was a solid episode, although less intriguing than the previous two outings that were more exciting and had the sense of an action-adventure feature. This is chapter four of Penny’s second book she will hopefully write, and chapter four barely had anything to do with the first three chapters. The writers essentially figured they could spend some time with a ghost ship premise (every science fiction show that has spaceships in it needs to have one of these, it is an easy episode to write) and when they were done with it, move on to the next part of the Robinson journey, making this hour something of a filler episode. Soundstage settings, only a couple of guest characters, almost all greenscreen effects, plus a crawling robot – it seemed like a, for LOST IN SPACE standards, cheap episode to put to screen. But what do I know?
The only parts that seemed necessary for the greater story arc were the knowledge of two monsters wreaking havoc on the Resolute, with Will’s robot turning out to be the hero (hence the scavenger hunt that was teased by the end of the episode), and the tease of something greater behind the “looking glass,” which for some reason was offered to Maureen and John like they were immediately becoming part of the SWAT team of colonists, ready to find out which secrets the executives of this colonization mission has been kept from humanity. Of course, it helps that Maureen and John are being included like this since it hinders the writers from creating mystery storylines and the viewers asking themselves questions otherwise, but I would have figured that the people running the Resolute were still interested in keeping “executive things” to the characters who are “executives,” and the Robinsons are just civilians. Why relay some of the greatest secrets of this mission to a family that just returned from being lost in space?
The story of Scarecrow creeping closer on the Robinsons for destruction and murder was okay. I laughed a little that the robot was still considered dangerous, even though if it was only crawling the entire time (apparently it was crawling faster than the Robinsons were running, which I have difficulties to believe), but it was a solid-enough “monster in the dark” premise that led to some fine character moments between Judy and Samantha, as well as Penny and Will. I love it when the kids have screentime together and go on their own adventures, and I even liked that Judy was the most mature she has ever been while watching out for Samantha’s safety. It is almost like the writers were intending towards maturing all the Robinson children, which Judy becoming a mother figure to someone else (only Samantha has her own mother to run towards in the next episode), Penny becoming a horse wrangler, and Will becoming the connector to his robot, which would also mean he is the connector between the robot race and humanity (does that make him the leader of the robot race in future episodes?). Anyway, Scarecrow was not doing much that is considered horrific and thrilling, begging the question of why anyone else on the Resolute, before the evacuation, was unable to trap it as the Robinsons did here. Plus, where did the fighting robots go that crashed through the hull at the beginning of the season premiere, when it was all Scarecrow from behind a blast door that was causing all of this havoc today? One of them was Will's robot, and the other was not Scarecrow. So where is the third missing robot?
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| You better hide from the monster. |
Meanwhile, Smith was doing her own thing, and I guess it was a nice way to make her “Zoe Smith” for real, instead of June Harris. This way the characters will not call her by her real name and the show can continue to carry the “Smith legacy” of LOST IN SPACE, even giving the show’s reviewers ample opportunity to forget all about where Smith came from and what her real name is. After all, she behaves like a Dr. Smith, so she can be called that way. I just found her story a bit alienating – as the Robinsons were dealing with the crap that could have killed them, Smith was able to just walk around the Resolute like it is nobody’s business, enter and exit rooms she should not have had access to, delete security footage she should not have had access to, just so a narrative of “Zoe Smith” can be built. This may manifest her as that false persona, but what it did to the narrative of the show and her character was not much.
In a way, she was established as a con artist, which is actually helpful (as long as we forgot all about her killing people, and this episode reminded us of that fact multiple times) because that way she is not just a psychopathic and manipulative bitch, but all she did in this episode was removing herself from the place of danger and death, even though she was physically in the place of danger and death, doing her own thing rather than getting involved in the premise of the episode. It is like she was her own ghost during this ghost ship hour. Only this time around, after finding out who she killed on the Resolute way back when, Smith has a chance to find out what it is like to feel emotion when standing before family members of her victims.
