John and Will fight a battle with an alien father and son that is to the death.John and Will fight a battle with an alien father and son that is to the death.John and Will fight a battle with an alien father and son that is to the death.
Bill Mumy
- Will Robinson
- (as Billy Mumy)
Dick Tufeld
- The Robot
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFeatures the first occurrence of the Robot's laughter, about which he says it is "only [his] computers being cleared" when Dr Smith asks what else "do we have to do" for work.
- GoofsDuring Professor Robinson's "Volta Blade" duel with the Leader, he splits a tree in half with his sword. One half of the large tree falls on the cord of his electronic sword, completely trapping it. In the next shot, the cord has come "untrapped" from the tree and is again swinging freely.
- ConnectionsReferences The Fly (1958)
Featured review
Excellent with a misstep ending
I agree with the other reviewer that the very ending of the story, where the boy and his father are apparently going to kill this unknown creature as a bonding moment really mars the episode and leaves a sad feeling.
Without any justification whatsoever, it sure looks like they are going into this creature's home to kill it for no reason. LIS was rarely if ever so causally cruel.
Well, in my personal canon, I just assume the father wasn't going to kill the creature and this was just another lesson to his son that occurred offscreen. There were several things in the story that weren't as bad as they first appeared so I think that works.
Excellent overall though, with an epic feel.
Kurt Russell has eye rolled his performance here, but, while may not be exactly inspired, plenty of adult characters have struggled with these "proud warrior race" characters. (I despise this character trope for this reason.) Go watch the Jem Hadar on DS9 when they start talking duty and honor and it's like Russell plays it here. At least it makes sense that a boy would sound stiff because he's acting like he's a warrior.
There's a curious attitude in this story where Maureen and Penny are offended at the aliens' quite strong patriarchal attitude and insists that men and women are equals in Earth's society.
It sure rarely seems that on this show!
(Though, I always wondered if Maureen's excessive deference to John was something that got cross-wired in the production. That level of wife/husband subservience was extreme for the mid 60s. However, this wasn't a normal family, this was a family on a deep space mission, and John was the commander. Maureen's frequent "may I"'s to John make more sense considering that. Also, Will's hyper polite "yes sir/no sir" behavior makes more sense too.
Without any justification whatsoever, it sure looks like they are going into this creature's home to kill it for no reason. LIS was rarely if ever so causally cruel.
Well, in my personal canon, I just assume the father wasn't going to kill the creature and this was just another lesson to his son that occurred offscreen. There were several things in the story that weren't as bad as they first appeared so I think that works.
Excellent overall though, with an epic feel.
Kurt Russell has eye rolled his performance here, but, while may not be exactly inspired, plenty of adult characters have struggled with these "proud warrior race" characters. (I despise this character trope for this reason.) Go watch the Jem Hadar on DS9 when they start talking duty and honor and it's like Russell plays it here. At least it makes sense that a boy would sound stiff because he's acting like he's a warrior.
There's a curious attitude in this story where Maureen and Penny are offended at the aliens' quite strong patriarchal attitude and insists that men and women are equals in Earth's society.
It sure rarely seems that on this show!
(Though, I always wondered if Maureen's excessive deference to John was something that got cross-wired in the production. That level of wife/husband subservience was extreme for the mid 60s. However, this wasn't a normal family, this was a family on a deep space mission, and John was the commander. Maureen's frequent "may I"'s to John make more sense considering that. Also, Will's hyper polite "yes sir/no sir" behavior makes more sense too.
helpful•20
- bgaiv
- Nov 22, 2022
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- Runtime50 minutes
- Color
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- 1.33 : 1
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