Why Did LOST iN SPACE Change?

As a kid, I was fascinated by the early episodes of "Space." But as it morphed into the "Will & Dr. Smith Comedy Hour," I stopped watching. Even an 11-year-old knew garbage when he saw it.

I seem to remember the same thing sort of happened with Allen’s “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” series.

The change in Lost In Space in many ways paralleled the changes to Happy Days a decade later. Happy Days started as a realistic (and humorous) look at the 50's and later, to get better ratings, it became the Fonzie show. Fonzie and Dr. Smith had much in common with their roles.

I was a teenager at the time. I saw something in the Will Robinson and the Robot characters that made the show a winner. And Penny was drop dead gorgeous!

My favorite piece of “Lost In Space” trivia was finding out a while ago that Bill and Angela hooked up a few years after the show ended and almost got married.

Born Jonathan Charasuchin in the Bronx to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Harris adopted the stage persona of a classically trained British actor. And that is just cool!

I never understood it. Even as a kid, I was so disappointed when it de-evolved from a top notch Sci Fi show into a campy Sid and Marty Krofft pre-school comedy. The only thing missing was the talking flute.

is it just me... or is this narrator's voice just pure GOLD! 👍

Jonathan Harris was also a voice actor on “Battlestar Galactica”, as Lucifer.💜😈

Man, those first 5 episodes were awesome before the start of the slow decline into corporate marketing madness.

I was lucky to get to have lunch with Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen once. Very nice people, down to earth. They both had nothing but the highest compliments for Johnathan Harris. They said he was the nicest man they ever worked with. Lots of praise for Guy Williams as a professional. Marta Kristen and Mark Goddard were very nice too.

The voice of the robot, Dick Tufeld, was used in the opening of Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel and even, Peyton Place. I remember my mother sending me out of the room when Peyton Place came on.

I always thought the show went downhill the moment Jonathan Harris started to camp up the Dr. Smith character. It was like this decision of his marked the beginning of the show's unwatchability. I had also heard or read long ago that Harris believed his character was on the chopping block, so he decided to ham it up as a "F--- you" to those calling for his character to be removed from the show. Maybe that information was incorrect, but I still feel that Harris going camp marked the end of the show's watchability for me. It took the character of Harris' voiced Lucifer in Battlestar Galactica to partially redeem the man in my eyes.

Some of those Television execs from yesteryear look increasingly narrow minded and short sighted in retrospect. When I was a kid, the early episodes of "Lost In Space" scared the heck out of me.... but I LOVED IT! I was also watching "Dark Shadows" and the original "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" for many of the same reasons: because a lot of kids like scary movies and shows! The goofier "Lost In Space" got, the less I liked it!

It went from a sci-fi series, to the Dr Smith and Will show.

Dan, I love your impression of Smith. When my son was little back in late 90s we watched it regularly here in England and when I did the Smith impression he went into hysterics, he still does. Bungling ninny was another

My favorite episode must have been in the black and white season when Will Robinson gets teleported back to Earth , but no one beloved he was Will Robison. It was a very heart warming story of going home.

The Anti-Matter Man is one of the series best episodes.

Thanks for all your work. Bill Mumy said about Harris' role in his first episode, "It was actually implied that this villainous character that sabotaged the mission and ended up with us was going to be killed off after a while." The series was successful upon its debut and, midway through the first season, Harris began to rewrite his own dialogue to add more comedy because he felt that his strength was in portraying a comic villain. Due to Harris's popularity on the show, Irwin Allen approved his changes and gave him carte blanche as a writer. Harris subsequently stole the show, mainly via a seemingly never-ending series of alliterative insults directed toward The Robot, which soon worked their way into popular culture. However , after listening to Mr. Monroe's excellent explanation of the rest of the story I now understand the actions and causes of the change. Thank you, Mr. Monroe. The elephant in the room was why would the parents permit the evil Smith to go on excursions with their child and the Robot. The first black and white season was fun. The Dr.Smith and Will Robinson show was silly and very strange. ‘Oh the pain … the pain’.

Voyage to the bottom of the Sea had the same problem serious the 1st season campy when it went to color