Conference ljsrv1::tv_chatter

261.0. "Lost In Space" by ECRU::CLARK (Chairman of the Bored) Sat Jun 04 1994 06:05

This conference needs some action.

              In case you missed it in the sixties...
   
                   (for jupiter2@netcom.com)
   
   In the year 1997, the Robinson family takes off in the Jupiter 2,
   America's first colonization mission to Alpha Centauri. However, a spy
   for a foreign country, Dr. Zachary Smith, sneaks on board and sabotages
   the mission by reprogramming the ship's robot to destroy the Jupiter 2
   after launch. But Smith becomes trapped on board, and the Robinsons
   save the ship, but not before it's guidance system is damaged, and the
   Jupiter 2 becomes lost in space. The Jupiter 2 is pulled into a giant
   alien spaceship, where they encounter an advanced race of bubblelike
   creatures. John and Don search for maps and equipment, while Dr, Smith
   and Will get into trouble.  While outside the ship, Prof. Robinson's
   parajets misfire, and he plummets towards the planet below. Don
   attempts to follow in the Jupiter 2, but Dr. Smith's sabotage causes
   the retro-rockets to fail, and the ship crash lands. They then search
   the planet for Prof. Robinson, using the space chariot.  John discovers
   that the planet they are on will soon move farther from its sun and
   freeze. The Robinson's attempt to abandon the ship and move South in
   hopes of surviving. They encounter a carnivorous Cyclops who impedes
   their escape.  John discovers that the planet's orbit will again carry
   it back towards the sun. The family heads back towards the Jupiter 2 in
   the Chariot, but encounter earthquakes and storms. They cross an island
   sea to reach their ship.
   
   The Robinsons find astronaut Jimmy Hapgood, also lost from Earth, on
   the planet. They help him repair his ship, which is in better
   condition, so that he can return to Earth. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson ask
   him to take Will and Penny with him, but Dr. Smith plots to have
   himself taken instead.  However, Hapgood enjoys life in space, and no
   one returns to Earth.  Penny plays with an "imaginary" companion,
   actually a disembodied life force living below the surface.  When Dr.
   Smith accidentally injures Penny, the companion unleashes its wrath
   across the entire planet, until Penny intervenes and calms it down, and
   then it undergoes a startling transformation.  Luminous aliens capture
   Dr. Smith, and plan to replace their burnt-out computer with his
   brain.  However, he bargains with them, and promises them Will's brain
   instead. Thus they are pitted against the Robinsons.  Smith eats some
   alien fruit before it can be tested, and grows into a giant. Convinced
   that the Robinsons were trying to kill him, he plots to finish them
   off. However, he is returned to normal size, and does not kill any
   Robinsons.
   
   The Robinsons find themselves unable to understand the electronic
   language of a visiting space family.  Banished from the Robinson Camp,
   Dr. Smith takes refuge in the wreck of an alien spaceship, where he
   finds a machine that can materialize anything one wishes. To get the
   Robinsons to allow him back into the Jupiter 2, he donates the machine
   to them.  It then starts to play on their greed.  The machine's
   original owner, a strange Rubberoid creature, then returns to retreive
   it.  The Robinsons construct a small space craft capable of carrying
   two people back to Earth. Dr.  Smith takes off in it, with Will, but it
   isn't on the Earth that they land.  The Robinsons find a suspended
   animation test ship with a twenty-year-old dog in it. Then at night,
   food is being taken off the ship, and growling noises are heard. It's
   not the dog, however, but a giant, hairy mutant who attacks Judy, until
   the dog saves her.
   
   Giant cyclamen plants, which duplicate anything put into them, make an
   evil duplicate of Judy, in an attempt to get the Jupiter 2's supply of
   deutronium fuel. The evil Judy feeds all of the fuel to the plants,
   while Dr. Smith refuses to tell the Robinsons where the real Judy is.
   Will is able to use the Tauron's maser device to transport himself back
   to Earth. However, nobody will believe that he is one of the Robinsons,
   or that they are shipwrecked.  An intergalactic zookeeper comes by, and
   the Robinsons are suspicious of the way he treats them as specimens,
   rather than humans, which is true. He decides to add Will and Penny to
   his menagerie. Hoping to steal the Keeper's ship, Dr. Smith sneaks on
   board, but accidentally lets all of the animals loose. The Keeper then
   says that if the Robinsons do not hand over Will and Penny, he will
   allow the dangerous monsters to overrun the planet.  Will is kidnapped,
   and later befriends Tucker the space pirate, who is being chased by a
   creature from another galaxy.  Dr. Smith throws an explosive into a
   gaseous bog, creating an invisible, destructive force that threatens
   the Robinsons. Dr. Smith is convinced that the thing is the spirit of
   his uncle Thaddeus.  While the Robinsons figure out how to capture it,
   Smith tries to exorcise it.
   
   Will finds a robot and repairs it. It helps the Robinsons with their
   chores, but is in actuality an evil robot created by an advanced race.
   It is programmed to have a will of its own, and it plans to capture the
   Robinsons for its masters, and destroy their Robot. [The robot used is
   actually Robby the Robot, from several MGM SF movies.] Penny, and her
   pet Bloop, Debbie (don't ask what a Bloop is! All I know is that it is
   something like a chimpanzee) fall through an alien mirror into another
   dimension, onto a planet inhabited by a lonely, nameless boy.  An alien
   and his son come to the Robinsons, and challenge John and Will to a
   test of strength and courage to prove their superiority over
   Earthlings. Unknown to the Robinsons, if John and Will win, they will
   all be killed.  When a space merchant attempts to drum up business by
   destroying the Robinson's food supply, a hungry Smith promises to will
   his body to the trader in 200 years in exchange for food.
   Unfortunately, the fine print allows the trader to collect
   immediately.  Smith is selected to be king of an alien civilization,
   but later finds the reason - the aliens select only the most useless
   creatures of the Universe, to be sacrificed to their primitive
   deities.  Hoping to get back to Earth, Smith romances the mother of a
   clan of space hillbillies, unaware that they are growing a crop of
   plants that feed on animal and human flesh.
   
   A space thief entrusts Penny and Smith with a neck-ring that turns
   anything the wearer touches into platinum. Smith betrays the thief and
   keeps the ring for himself, then accidentally turns Penny into
   platinum.  According to the rules of an ancient civilization, Will must
   marry the princess he kissed and awoke from suspended animation. The
   civilization has been stockpiling soldiers in freezing tubes, and now
   plans to conquer the universe, beginning with Earth. Will returns
   from a faster-than-light trip into the sixth dimension in an alien
   spaceship with his intelligence greatly enhanced. Smith, trying to
   repeat the incident, returns as an old man.  Knocked unconscious during
   a cave-in, John's mind and body are possessed by an alien warrior's
   spirit. When the rest of the Robinsons become suspicious of John's
   unusual behavior, he seals them up in the cave, and plots to throw Will
   off a cliff. Will exorcises the spirit through the power of his love
   for his father.
   
   The Robinsons prepare for a quick takeoff when they find that a mining
   engineer blasting for a life-giving mineral has caused a chain-reaction
   of earthquakes that will disintegrate the planet.  Setting course once
   more for Alpha Centauri, the Robinson's journey is again hampered by
   Smith, who first dumps the ship's fuel into space, then almost pilots
   the Jupiter 2 into a sun. Then Athena, the Green Girl who wants the
   Jupiter 2's deutronium fuel for food, hypnotises Smith into going into
   space. The Robinson's rescue of him once again throws the ship off
   course, and they are again lost in space.  A voice claiming to be from
   Earth instructs Smith to land Jupiter 2 on the planet it is passing.
   When Smith obeys, the Robinsons find a civilization of robots who make
   humans their slaves.  Jupiter 2 crash lands on a planet whose only
   inhabitants are a strange little hermit and his giant bird.  Smith,
   Will, and the Robot are captured by the alien, who plans to mobilize an
   army to destroy the Jupiter 2. Of course, he has no army, as the
   Robinsons learn. Also, Dr. Smith drinks an alien nectar, later
   realizing that it is highly explosive, and he may blow up at any time.
   
   A space circus comes to town (or planet), and give a show for the
   Robinsons. The owner learns that Will has the power to materialize
   anything he wants, when assisted. He convinces Will to run away with
   the circus, for the good of his family.  An outer-space court accuses
   the Robinsons of various crimes during their journey, but after
   questioning, it is shown that Smith was the culprit behind each
   incident. The Robinsons convince the tribunal not to punish Smith.
   Smith finds a "Celestial Department Store catalog" and accidentally
   orders an emotionless "female" android, whom the Robinsons teach to be
   human. Unfortunately, the department store's manager, Zumdish, either
   wants payment, or the android back; preferably the android, since it
   has been improved upon. When the Robinsons refuse to cooperate, the
   manager takes steps to force them.  A travelling show lands on the
   planet, and the owner tells Smith that if he agrees to box with a
   midget and wins, he will be returned to Earth. However, it is a trick,
   and he loses. The troop is really testing Earth to see if it can be
   conquered easily, and to save it, John challenges the owner to a
   battle.  Convinced that the Robinsons have maps which will lead him to
   a space princess, a thief captures Will, Penny, and Smith. Will is made
   an apprentice thief, Penny is held prisoner, and Smith is marked for
   death under a pendulum.
   
   An "alien" that Smith is terrified of turns out to be his cousin
   Jeremiah, who is in cahoots with an intergalactic Mafia in an attempt
   to murder Dr. Smith and claim his family inheritance.  Smith's
   doppelganger, a space desperado, forces him to change clothes. Smith is
   then arrested as the real gunslinger, and is taken away to another
   planet to be executed for his "crimes." Smith plays a musical
   instrument he finds, and is transported to hell, or so he thinks.
   Actually, it's a prison for one criminal, who pretends to be the devil
   in order to get Smith to help him escape. Judy and Don also visit
   "hell". The key to his escape was hidden in the musical instrument,
   which playing causes him pain.  Aliens steal and disassemble the Robot
   in order to find out how Earth machines work. With that knowledge, they
   plan to build a machine to take over all other machines on Earth, and
   subjugate the human race.  To make his android more "human", a
   scientist drains all emotions from the Robinsons, leaving them
   unimaginative and apathetic.  Two representatives from their respective
   planets, that are at war with each other, land on the Robinson's
   planet. One is a handsome golden man, the other a hideous frog
   creature. Dr. Smith wishes to help the Golden man destroy his foe, who
   claims to be the good guy, while Penny wants to help the other, who is
   unfriendly to strangers. It is later learned that the Golden man was
   wearing a disguise, and is even more hideous than his foe. He was
   trying to trick the Robinsons into helping him, but in the end, they
   saw the light.
   
   Athena, the green girl returns.  A big, mean, ugly, nasty, green brute
   from her home dimension is courting her, and she draws pretty,
   handsome, brave, pretty Dr. Smith into a love triangle. The big, green
   lug of course wishes to kill Smith. Also, Will is accidentally turned
   green, but Athena thinks he looks too 'pretty' to change back.  A space
   knight, a sort of Don Quixote, arrives, claiming to be after a
   ferocious dragon he has chased across the cosmos. He fills Will with
   stories of quests and dragons and things, and when Will learns that
   most of his stories are lies, he loses faith in people. Meanwhile, the
   knight finally catches up with the dragon he has chased for most of his
   life, and finds out that it is a friendly, female, sentient life form,
   and loses the desire to slay her, and also his purpose in life.  Smith
   is captured by a Celestial Department Store ordering machine (remember
   those?), made into a clown, and put into the toy department. Will and
   the Robot follow him into the machine, and discover a passage back to
   Earth.  An insane space pirate, Zahrk, abducts Will, Smith, and the
   Robot and uses them as his crew in his relentless search for his first
   mate, Mr. Christiansen, who committed mutiny.  Dr. Smith steals the
   gloves and hammer of Thor, god of Thunder, and the enraged deity
   challenges the good Dr. to a duel to the death. Through trickery, Smith
   convinces Thor that he is ineffectual and would lose, just when
   Valhalla is attacked by giants.
   
   Smith plays sorcerer's apprentice to a space magician, hoping to steal
   his spaceship and return to Earth.  However, the ship is programmed to
   self-destruct when it reaches space.  Luring Smith into a cave, a
   computer gradually takes over his mind and body, transforming him into
   an alien. With a launch window coming up soon, the Robinson's must get
   Smith's true identity to emerge, or leave him behind.  A hideous
   mechanical head mistakes Dr.  Smith for its master and tries to lead
   him to a priceless treasure. A humanoid group of pirates finds out and
   forces Smith to take them along. A captain joins the Robot, Will, Dr.
   Smith and Penny on the treasure hunt that yields a disappointing
   booty.  Verda the department store android returns, pursued by an alien
   superman sent to bring her back or destroy her. When the Robinsons win
   over the superman's sympathies, the CDS machine simply creates another
   android, stronger and totally devoted to destruction. ["Crush, Kill,
   Destroy!"] The Robinson men are captured by female warriors and put to
   work, while the women are treated to lives of luxury. The men's fate
   hinges on Smith, who has wormed his way into the Amazon queen's
   affections and can sabotage her base.  Losing power and unable to be
   recharged, the dying Robot wanders into a gaseous area, where the
   vapors turn him into a giant. Smith and Will crawl inside him to
   reverse his ionic process, shrink him back to size, and possibly save
   him.
   
   Will discovers that his family has been replaced by android duplicates.
   Their creator wants Will to teach them how to act like real humans...or
   the original Robinsons will die.  An army of tiny robots, all
   resembling the Robinson's Robot, lay siege to the Robinson's camp and
   demand the return of their 'leader', the Robot. The army is vicious,
   and want to take over the universe. They realize that the Robot is too
   kind to help them, so they transfer Smith's personality into the Robot,
   and vice versa.  Will passes through a space warp into 19th-century
   Scotland, where a ghost and a monster inhabit an old castle. Smith
   follows, and the ghost learns that Smith's ancestors were responsible
   for his death.  He then plans Smith's beheading. But mercy arrives for
   both Smith and the ghost (and Angus the monster!) from beyond.  Penny's
   loyalties are tested when she must either watch her family die or give
   up an amulet an alien warned her not to. Other aliens will transport
   her to an unreal "Earth" as a reward, if she will sacrifice the gift.
   They persuade Dr. Smith to help them trick Penny.
   
   Jupiter 2 lifts off only hours before the planet is scheduled to
   collide with a comet. In space once more, the Robinson's discover a
   ship full of frozen criminals. Smith releases one, who releases
   another, and so on, and so on... until a fullscale escape is mounted.
   The Jupiter 2 is thrust back in time and lands on Earth in the year
   1947, 50 years before they left.  The ship is mistaken for a UFO, and a
   small town near where they land prepares to fight off the invading
   'Martians'. Determined to stay on any 'Earth', Smith joins the
   townspeople, and Will is captured.  Androids, ruled by a giant
   computer, capture the Jupiter 2 and force the Robot to operate on their
   failing leader. Meanwhile, Smith tampers with a time-control device and
   is turned into a little boy.  Shockingly, John is killed by a laser
   beam. It is learned that the androids can control time.  John (yes, he
   lived) kills an attacking monster which turns out to be the quarry of
   Megazor, a hunter. As punishment, John is made his new quarry in a
   deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
   
   On their way to cap a threatening volcano, Don and Smith are captured
   by primitives who are governed by a computer, and face two possible
   deaths: execution by the tribe, or burning under the lava of the
   volcano.  Smith finds an android-creating device and makes himself a
   set of conquering soldiers who look exactly like him, and dreams of
   conquering the galaxy. In trying to stop him, Will falls into the
   machine, and emerges with Smith's face and a lust for killing.  Before
   leaving their planet, which is being swept by a space storm, the
   Robinsons find and take along an alien boy named J-5.  They find a
   lighthouse in space and stop in, where the boy's mental powers and
   unusual 'pet' are unleashed.  Will, Smith, and the Robot land the Space
   Pod on a planet which seemingly defies logic. They find fruit that
   explodes, invisible birds that cast shadows, a deserted wreck of the
   Jupiter 2, a monument to the Robot, and people who say they are the
   descendants of the Robinsons, and that the year is 2270 A.D.  Four
   space hippies are assigned by their leader to blow up the planet that
   the Robinsons are living on, without giving them time to make repairs
   and leave. Their only hope seems to be Smith, who has been transformed
   into a space-age Samson with green hair by a weird gas.
   
   Jupiter 2 is locked into orbit around a planet which harbors a creature
   that feeds on fear. In order to create its life-food, the being causes
   the Robinsons to disappear from the ship one by one, leaving a
   psychotic Dr. Smith, who is trying to murder Will.  The Robot falls in
   love with a female robot, who is being hunted by law officers of her
   world for being a killer.  An intergalactic showman, Farnum B., puts
   the Robinsons on exhibit in his space zoo. During an escape attempt,
   Will and his captor fall into another time zone, while Dr. Smith uses
   Farnum's caveboy-helper to take control of the zoo's operation.
   Zumdish, now operating a tour agency (finally quit the Celestial
   Department Store), comes to the Robinson's planet with clients. Smith
   seizes the opportunity to turn the presently-empty Jupiter 2 into a
   resort hotel, unaware that four of the vacationing aliens are really
   murderers hiding from the law.  The Robinsons give refuge to a
   beautiful ice princess who is running from a bounty hunter. When the
   hunter captures Will, he suggests a trade: the boy for the princess.
   The Robot takes on the hunter like "el Toro" to save the princess.  An
   experiment gone awry transports John to an anti-matter world, and sends
   his evil double back.
   
   Will, Smith, and the Robot attempt to rescue John, who is being guarded
   by a psychotic, bearded double of Don, and a shackled, evil Robot. The
   evil John is willing to kill everyone to keep his freedom from the
   miserable anti-matter world.  Shapeless aliens imprison the Robinsons
   and make themselves into their doubles, and then hijack the Jupiter 2,
   planning to go back and conquer the Earth. They reprogram the Robot to
   help them. Will and Smith escape, capture their doubles, and replace
   them on the journey, in an attempt to stop them.  Confusion surrounds
   Penny's lineage when she is taken for a space princess, put onto an
   alien ship, and trained to take over the throne of an another planet.
   A time merchant, living in a Daliesque world, prepares to kill the
   Robinsons because they accidentally interrupted his time-trip. Smith,
   sent back to Earth in 1997, must re-board the Jupiter 2, or watch it be
   destroyed.  Told that they are approaching an Earth colony, the
   Robinsons land on a planet whose culture is totally geared for
   teenagers. Soon, subtle brainwashing causes the older Robinsons and the
   children to disassociate themselves from each other.  Smith becomes a
   hippie.
   
   Don and Smith are framed as criminals and sent to the toughest prison
   in the galaxy. While Will and the Robot try to figure a way to get them
   out, Don and Smith argue over whether or not to go along with a
   criminal's escape plan.  Farnum B. is back, and now in the beauty
   contest business. He tries to sign Judy up as a contestant.  Unknown to
   the Robinsons, if Farnum can't get her to sign, his master, a man of
   fire, will keep his soul.  To alleviate a crisis, Jupiter 2 must orbit
   a planet for several hours. However, the alien living there, the last
   of a proud warrior race, will not permit it unless someone stays behind
   to wage him one last war, using the planet's extensive weaponry.  On
   another planet, Dr. Smith plucks a flower, arousing accusations of
   murder from a giant, talking carrot, who plans to punish the Robinsons
   by turning them into plants. Jupiter 2 lands on a planet used
   as the galaxy's junkyard. With the ship's food supply deteriorating,
   Smith sacrifices first the Robot's memory banks to the mechanical
   junkman, then the Jupiter 2 itself.

	What exactly did you post there in .0?

And why would you spend so much typing time on a series which rivals "My Mother
the Car" for stupidity and inaneness?


Randy

Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 01:30:17 -0400
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@netrix.lkg.dec.com>
Subject: Returned mail: User unknown
To: michaud@netrix.lkg.dec.com

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
While talking to /usr/sbin/mail11v3:
>>> RCPT To:<clark>
<<< 550-CLARK; %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user NO_LONGER_AT_DEC at node ECRU
<<< 550
550 ECRU::CLARK... User unknown

   ----- Unsent message follows -----
.......

    
    
    			intruder...intruder...intruder
    
    
    
    
    
    
    8^)
    
    
    

    Danger!  Danger, Will Robinson!
    
    [looks like he accumulated the synopses for all shows into a few
     paragraphs...]
    				Jim

    Were not these people supposed to start a new colony on Alpha whatever?
    Doesn't this bring into question the supposed long term relationships
    that would be needed to 'colonize'. I mean Don and Judy (was that her
    name?) were obviously meant to mate, and of course there was the
    husband and wife, who would have more offspring. But what of them and 
    Will and Penny. Do they just grow old and never mate? I mean they 
    are all related except for Don, making him the father of the new colony. 
    Preyy scary. 
    
    I used to collect Lost in Space cards when I was a kid. We used to
    fight over who would play the robot when we played this, only when we
    were not playing Combat, based very loosly on the series starring Vic
    Marrow. 
    
    Rumbling ramblings...
    
    Dave.
    
    

    
    	You never know what happens once they turn the lights off.
    
    	8^)
    
    							GTI
    

    
    If I remember right, they were on there way to Alpha Centuri.  This
    planet was all ready colonized, they left earth to go there to keep
    the colonizeation going.  I remember quite a few times when they 
    tought they were near AC they would try and call them on the CB.
    
    So Penney could of meet a nice guy on the planet and got married.
    
    lou

    Does anyone know if episodes of Lost in Space are available on
    video-tape anywhere?  This was one of my favorite shows as a kid...
    
    Thanks,
    Dave

                 <<< FOO::USER:[NOTES$LIBRARY]TRIVIA.NOTE;1 >>>
                       -< Triviality is its own reward >-
================================================================================
Note 3746.16               What Ever Happened To ?????                  16 of 16
BUSY::BUSY::SLABOUNTY "Trouble with a capital 'T'"   13 lines   5-JUL-1995 10:47
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    	If you are interested in the "Lost in Space" video catalog, they
    	sent me something the other day and I was able to get a number:
    
    	1-800-538-7766
    
    	Whoever answers should be able to give you specifics as to how
    	the membership works ... but you DO NOT have to buy them all.
    	I usually order the premiere tapes [at $6 each or so] and then
    	I cancel.
    
    	I believe the "Lost in Space" tapes each contain 2 1-hour shows.