The OppenheimerReport - 3/3/96
More Fluff. At two o'clock this morning, while in a semi-comatose state, I was flipping around the dial for some golden nugget of late night television to watch, when I was rewarded with an episode from “Lost in Space”. Have you ever watched this show? Before it was banished to the catacombs of really late night TV, I used to watch “Lost in Space” a lot. Yeah, yeah, I know, get a life ... I tell you, this is good stuff!
Last night’s episode was, as usual, predictable (like “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”, wherein Kowalski always gets turned into a sea monster, but never gets killed, because they need him for the next show) ... Dr. Smith, who, in case you didn’t know, is a total jerk in every episode, once again endangers the whole family, this time by giving away one of their thrusters (no, not June Lockhart) to some bad guy from “Andy of Mayberry” who was playing a careless miner and who, in the process of digging for cosmonium (which comes in a little bottle and looks like a urine sample, but which is really the essence of life as we know it), causes the planet to become unstable and to disintegrate. It was so funny, I had tears streaming down from my eyes.
Whoever dreamed this show up deserves ... well, something. I haven’t enjoyed TV this much in ten years. The family space ship looks like an overturned Tupperware dog dish - what happened anyway, did they let the robot drive? The costumes are 1950's ski attire, and the robot, who, by the way, is my favorite actor in the series, is a moody, wise-cracking, reconditioned gravity feed furnace, with all-terrain treads for feet, a goofy big flat lightbulb for a head, flailing pool vacuum hoses for arms, who sounds like the guy who used to announce for Letterman, and who yells, “WARNING! WARNING!” a lot. The family pet is a moon chimp with furry antennae that look a little like they were ripped off a giraffe. Instead of making normal chimp noises, this thing bloops like a pot of thick chili turned up too high on the stove. They must have had a stunt chimp too, because in one scene, when the ground begins to shake, that ape is literally catapulted off the set. I wish I had taped it, because, one second it was there, and the next, all I saw was an antenna and an arm at the other end of the screen. Let me tell you, that stunt monkey earned its bananas ... I’d rather have Jackie Chan’s job. And I think that chimp was Bubbles’ mother (you’ve probably read about her torrid affair with Cheetah), which would explain a lot of things.
The evil Dr. Zachary Smith is a truly complex character. A stowaway and unwanted guest aboard the big upside down dog dish, he flits about with Will (the little boy), and the robot, pining incessantly for Earth. The writers have chosen to make him an effeminate coward, which must have been how the writers in the early 70's viewed homosexuals ... evil, selfish, and cowardly. Of course to complete the stereotype, we have three women who are total fluff heads; pretty, but too stupid and frail to handle the heavy equipment and fun-to-drive moon vehicles. Presumably, they do their hair a lot, because it is always exactly the same in each show. A critical aside: June Lockhart’s hair was a lot better on “Lassie”.
What ever happened to the cast of “Lost in Space” ... are they still out there? Maybe they can find that $460+ Million satellite NASA just lost. Maybe they’ve just faded into obscurity. Perhaps they’re selling maps to the stars’ houses. Heavy sigh.
-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©1996 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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