Buy Both DVD Sets Now By Clicking On The Icons Below!
Volume
One: Disc One: “Blast Off Into Space”, “Wild Adventure”, “The Ghost
Planet”, “Forbidden World”
Volume
One: Disc Two: “Space Circus”, “The Prisoners Of Space”, “The Android
Machine”, “The Deadly Games Of Gamma 6”
Volume
One: Disc Three: “The Thief From Outerspace”, “Curse Of Cousin Smith”,
“West Of Mars”, “A Visit To Hades”
Volume
One: Disc Four: “Wreck Of The Robot”, “The Dream Monster”, “The Golden
Man”, “The Girl From The Green Dimension”
Volume
Two: Disc One: “The Questing Beast”, “The Toymaker”, “Mutiny In
Space”, “The Space Vikings”
Volume
Two: Disc Two: “Rocket To Earth”, “The Cave Of The Wizards”, “Treasure
Of The Lost Planet”, “Revolt Of The Androids”
Volume
Two: Disc Three: “The Colonists”, “Trip Through The Robot”, “The
Phantom Family”, “The Mechanical Man”
Volume Two: Disc Four: “The Astral Traveler”, “The Galaxy Gift”
Stars: Guy
Williams, June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Angela Cartwright, Bill Mumy, Jonathan
Harris, Bob May, and Dick Tufeld
Guest Stars:
Michael Fox, Sue England, Wally Cox, James Westefield, Malachi Throne, Henry
Jones, Gerald Mohr, Dennis Patrick, Walter Burke, Ronald Long, Al Lewis, and
John Carradine
Writers: Peter
Packer, William Read Woodfield, Alan Balter, Barney Slater, Bob Duncan, Wanda
Duncan, Jackson Gillis, Michael Fessler, Carey Wilbur, and Margaret Brookman
Hill
Directors: Nathan
Juran, Don Richardson, Harru Harris, Jerry Juran, Justuss Addiss, Robert
Douglas, Ezra Stone, Harry Harris, and Seymour Robbie
Created And
Produced By: Irwin Allen
Feature length:
819 minutes/717 minutes
Extras: Rare 1966
Interviews With Original Cast Members June Lockhart, Guy Williams, and Jonathan
Harris
Languages:
English, French, and Spanish Language Two-Channel Monaural Sound
Subtitles: English
Captions and Closed Captions and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging: Eight
Slim Keep Cases In Two Cardboard Slip Cases
Chapter Stops: 12
Per Episode
Sound: Two-Channel
Monaural Sound
Year of Television
Broadcast: 1966-1967/DVD Release: 2004
Home Video
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
MPAA Rating: Not
Rated
Reviewer: Mark A.
Rivera
Despite being
billed as the male lead in an ensemble cast, Guy Williams, who played Professor
John Robinson, found the progressing storylines in “Lost In Space” to focus
more and more on the characters of young Will Robinson (Bill Mumy), the scheming
Doctor Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) and the robot who was voiced by both Bob
May, and Dick Tufeld during the show’s second season. In fact most of the
episodes would center on them and to a lesser degree on Will’s sister Penny,
played by Angela Cartwright. “Lost In Space” aired Wednesday nights on CBS
for the 1966-1967 season and faced competition from the “Batman” TV series
that starred Adam West and Burt Ward. So the series shifted the storylines from
survival adventures to campy fantasy adventures, which help garner the show a
larger audience, but also caused it to lose credibility. By the time the
series’ second season would come to a close, Creator and Producer Irwin Allen
promised to shift the storyline again into something more serious, but it was
not long until the show fell back upon the formula of season two. Thus “Lost
In Space” would never quite capture the same genre appeal of the original
“Star Trek,” but it would still earn itself a place in the memories and
hearts of sci-fi fans that would grow up watching reruns in syndication for
generations to come.
Season Two begins
with Space Family Robinson blasting off from the planet they occupied during the
first season aboard the Jupiter 2 and nearly crashing into the Earth’s
own sun. Since Dr. Smith had sabotaged the ship’s astronavigation charts, the
Robinson family succeeds only in radioing Earth, but they are unable to plot a
course back home. So they leave the Earth’s solar system into uncharted space
and in the process become lost again.
The second season
of “Lost In Space” was also the first season the show would be broadcast in
color and to capitalize on this, Irwin Allen attempted to use splashes of color
everywhere to titillate the audience with what would then be considered a type
of eye candy. Some of the effects worked out nicely, but others came across
terribly stiff. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment chose to release the
second season of “Lost In Space” in two volumes. The first of which is
available now and the second volume containing the final 14 episodes of season
two is set to debut on DVD on Tuesday, November 30, 2004.
In terms of
picture quality, all of the episodes look good, but not nearly as nice as I had
hoped. Somehow the image looks almost as if someone smeared something on the
lens. There’s a hint of grain left over from whatever source materials were
used. Perhaps I’m being a nitpicker because the shows still look better than
the television broadcasts I’ve seen, but I really expected the image quality
to knock my socks off for the second season. All thirty season two episodes are
presented in their original (1.33:1) television broadcast aspect ratio with a
clear English Two-Channel Monaural Soundtrack that is free of any analogue
background noise and hissing. French and Spanish Language Dubbed Two-Channel
Monaural Soundtracks and English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing
impaired as well as Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded onto all eight discs
within the two volumes as options. The menus are all standard interactive still
frames that are easy to navigate.
The fourth disc of
the second volume set features rare radio interviews with June Lockhart, Guy
Williams, and Jonathan Harris. The interviews sound more like clips than an
actual one on one discussion. Still photos from the series play onscreen during
the audio clips. It is interesting to note that before Jonathan Harris became a
full time actor, he was actually a pharmacist in New York. I’m not sure if he
was pandering for the listeners in the interview, but he certainly sounded a lot
like the character most people now associate with him. These are the only bonus
materials included within the second set. There are no extra value materials at
all for the first season. Perhaps Fox will consider wrangling up a few surviving
cast members for an audio commentary or something for the eventual DVD release
of the third and final season?
“Lost In Space:
Season Two: Volume One” is available on DVD-Video now while “Lost In Space:
Season Two: Volume Two” will debut at retailers on and offline on Tuesday,
November 30, 2004 courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
© Copyright 2004
By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
Buy Both DVD Sets Now By Clicking On The Icons Below!