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A great show if you watch it long enough, the Lost in Space Netflix 2018 series is a loving homage to the Irwin Allen original released in 1965.
The long-time fans of the original show will have a lot of resistance to liking this show as you expect the reboot to stay true to its roots. I love love love the fact that they kept the best version of the Lost in Space Theme song - the one from Season 3 of the original
It took me an entire season of intermittent watching to warm up to the reboot, and even as I did, it was because the season arc leaned heavily in the direction of the original premise.
The Cast of Lost in Space Netflix Series
Maxwell Jenkins' Will Robinson is just as annoyingly do-good as the one played by Bill Mumy.
They have a couple of good cameos by Bill Mumy who plays the actual Dr. Smith and Angela Cartwright who plays Sheila Harris.
Mina Sundwall plays the role of Penny Robinson who is the youngest and hence the most overlooked - at least according to her. Taylor Russell plays the older daughter from whom more is expected by the Robinson family in general.
Toby Stephens and Molly Parker do a great job of playing John and Maureen Robinson in the Lost in Space Netflix series. Their roles as parents are adapted to the current day's sensibilities while maintaining the ratio of do-gooders. Toby and Molly are great at action in this series and keep the audience entertained with a toned-down version of the campiness you see in the Original.
Ignacio Serricchio plays Major Don West with excellent comic timing and dialogue delivery. He provides much-needed comic relief which used to be the express job of Jonathan Harris who plays Dr. Smith in the Original Lost in Space Series.
There is a smattering of other characters in this series who don't get nearly as much screen time as the Robinsons and Don West. But each person playing a character does justice to their role in this reboot.
Parker Posey does a great job of playing Dr. Smith with me hating her character right from the start. Although it's not the playful hate that you direct toward Dr. Smith in Irwin Allen's version played by Jonathan Harris. Posey's Smith generated the hate you reserve only for a psychopath/sociopath hybrid.
She does such a great job that you cannot ignore her on the show! Posey's character development is pretty decent with Dr. Smith growing as a person and as a villain on the show.
Her specialty is to manipulate people to the extent that they consider giving up their own lives based on what she says. At one point you actually see her witchy manipulation powers to do some good and it's quite a sight.
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Season 1
We have messed up the Earth (even more than now) and we have to find other planets to restart civilization. This coincides with the Christmas Star event where an alien engine crash lands on Earth in time for when mankind is looking for a way out of Earth.
Next, mankind retrofits the engine capable of lightspeed travel to a spacecraft that will ship people off to a planet orbiting the Alpha Centauri Star.
When they are on the way to the planet a meteor strike causes the spacecraft to stop in its tracks and crash onto a planet that is close by. The challenge is to get back to their spaceship named The Resolute in a fixed amount of time.
Right from the start the Robinson family faces deadly challenges along with the rest of the survivors. The first one comes in the form of the spaceship getting frozen in water and Jupiter's fuel being consumed by an alien life form. Next, Judy Robinson gets frozen in the ice and is eventually saved by an unlikely savior.
Will Robinson, true to form befriends an alien lifeform who looks like a robot and gets him to help them out in their time of need.
Coming to the graphics for the "apex predator" on the planet they land on were B-grade at best, a little worse than that actually. It's a good thing they put all the creature effects money they saved into the CGI for the scenes in space - cos they rock!
Even though we have come a long way in terms of scientific exploration and discovery, we still haven't found how to generate artificial gravity without the use of centrifugal force. So far a particle called the graviton is theorized to be the building blocks of gravitational waves. In this series, an alien engine is briefly shown to generate true artificial gravity without the use of centrifugal force which is quite interesting.
Parker Posey's Dr, Smith on the other hand does Dr. Smith things, but more evil than what Jonathan Harris would attempt.
There are spacewalks, alien monsters on the ground, space signaling, and celestial events all packed into this season which makes it entertaining.
Season 2
"This is a story of discovery but not of Strange New Worlds" as told by Will to his family on an alien planet seems to be a cheeky reference to the Star Trek prologue. This is when Will Robinson reads a copy of Penny's diary, celebrating Christmas on an alien planet while surviving.
The second season has a lot of alien tech that I think is feasible even with today's resources. My favorite is the single file of lighting rods that are carved into the alien planet to harness natural power through storm lightning.
You get to see more of the alien engine us humans jacked from the aliens to escape Earth's crappy environment to Alpha Centauri. JJ Feild, the British actor does a great job of portraying the lone soldier type named Ben who meets the Robinsons on The Resolute only to take them to another planet that's not a part of the Alpha star system.
A cool sequence is when the Robinsons use the spaceship as an actual ship that travels on the water with sails - again, very doable. After harnessing the natural power of lightning to launch out of the planet they find their mothership The Resolute. They face the old abandoned ghost ship trope and a lot of stuff happens.
There is an awesome large-scale mutiny, a rescue in space, and a fun cat-and-mouse game aboard The Resolute. All of this makes this season a worthy watch. In the end, you see the Robinsons pilot the alien engine with the help of an Alien robot to reach another world, leaving all the kids of the Resolute on a planet with plenty of water.
My favorite dialogue in this entire season is when Ignacio Serricchio playing Don West offers John Robinson company for dinner. It is completely hilarious and reminds me of Michael Peña's Luis character in the Ant-Man (2015) movie.
Season 3
Things come to a head in this season of the Lost in Space Netflix series with the good robots fighting against the bad robots in a grand showdown that is quite a spectacle.
In keeping with the tradition of the Robinsons mysteriously finding worlds on which humans can breathe, eat, and sleep without any issues, the children of the Resolute make a home on a strange planet as mentioned before.
Judy finds her estranged father who was presumed to be lost to space and pronounced dead as you see in the last season in the Hall of Heroes. You see Will Robinson really come into his own in this season with his relationship with his robot coming full circle.
There is a very enjoyable twist at the end of this series and an ending that is quite satisfying, unlike the abrupt end of the original series.
Should You Watch This? Yes!!
This reboot of the Lost in Space franchise is a fitting tribute to the original and builds incredibly well on its foundations. It has something for everyone, both old fans and new viewers alike with a healthy plotline, clean humor, and fantastic special effects.