Last year, the WB went back again to the well of 1960’s television by commissioning programs based on both Dark Shadows and Lost in Space. Neither show was picked up (instead, we got fare like Jack and Bobby), but the unfinished pilot episode to The Robinsons: Lost In Space has surfaced at underground (and soon some not-so-underground) places on the Internet. I watched the pilot episode a few nights ago, and I have to say I’m somewhat conflicted.

See, I was never a great fan of the original Lost in Space, being something of a science fiction snob at the time; I mean, c’mon, talking carrots are not on the menu of anyone who reads Robert Heinlein or Issac Asimov. At the same time, the idea of a spaceship lost among the cosmos does present some interesting possibilities, if handled correctly. The question is whether or not this particular incarnation handled the premise correctly, and it’s here I’m conflicted…it shows some promise, while leaning on the whole bug-eyed monster thing for its driving conflict.

John Robinson (Brad Johnson, Melrose Place) retires from the service and the invasion wars (against a mysterious enemy not clearly described), and decides with his wife Maureen (Jayne Brook, Chicago Hope, John Doe) after the required angst to become a farmer on a colony planet and take his entire family with him. And yeah, this counts as problem number one for me, since I can’t imagine this guy mellowing out on some colony planet. But we need to get the family into space somehow…

The colony ship is a series of small pods, each family having a pod of their own which will detach at the correct planet from the mothership and be piloted down to the world while the colony ship continues on. Efficient from a storytelling point of view, but a little inefficient from the perspective of science probability, especially considering the size of these pods…there’s a grand foyer the size of my house in this thing.

At John’s retirement dinner, daughter Judy (Adrianne Palicki, Popstar) meets Don West (Mike Erwin, Everwood) - this is all a little contrived, but necessary, since this is after all the WB network. Surely had this pilot gone to series, we would have eventually had a series of episodes where Judy lost her virginity, with the associated Sturm und Drang necessary to drive home the melodrama. Anyway…surprise, she finds Major West on the Jupiter, and when he discovers who her father is, he wants nothing to do with her again. (Ah, teen angst…)

Lessee…did I forget anyone? David Robinson (I can’t find a cast listing, and do not recognize the young man) doesn’t get along with his absentee father, and young Will Robinson (Ryan Malgarini, Freaky Friday) is busy building a robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) to keep the bullies from school from beating him up (if you see the pilot, watch closely on the workbench for pieces of the original series robot). And Penny Robinson is still only a baby. Ok, you’re now caught up that this is one seriously dysfunctional family.

Back on the Jupiter, our sightseeing crew is suddenly attacked by those afore-mentioned bug-eyed monsters. (No, really. Bug-eyed. Honest.) The battle scenes are impressive, if unfinished (there are frequent views of harnesses and such in the footage, which would probably have been removed digitally had the pilot been picked up), and eventually the entire family gathers back in the Jupiter V pod…except for David, who is trapped outside the pod when the smaller ship disengages. (”We’ll save you, David…we’re a family.”)

But the battle isn’t yet won; our heroes don’t have enough power to evade the aliens, at least until Will plugs the Robot into the ship’s power stores. Even so, with no weapons and little hope, John aims the pod into the maw of a black hole…the crew escapes the aliens, only to become, when escaping the black hole’s wormhole, Lost in Space.

Yeah, ok, we had to get lost somehow.

From what I’ve been able to read on the Net, there were apparently disagreements as to what direction to take this show, and the faction who wanted to get as far away from the 1960’s template lost…so it’s possibly a good thing that this show never made it to series. Still, it would have been interesting to see a version of Lost in Space not wedded to the camp of the original series, and part of me is sorry it didn’t get the pickup.

But not to worry…wait a few years, and someone else will decide to remake it. Heck, they’re doing everything else…