Bad TV Shows

I was talking about bad TV shows the last time I blogged, but I was getting tired of writing about them after dissing my once favorite TV show, The Blacklist. Another one I was going to condemn is the reboot of Lost in Space, now airing on Netflix. And yeah, what a joke that is.

Original cast for the original show, (minus the robot.)
Set a precedent.

Lost in Space, when I was little, was one of my favorite TV shows. SciFi adventures were an intriguing concept and I was thrilled to watch anything on TV or the movies that dealt with futuristic stories, especially when they were about space travel and alien worlds. The 1960s Lost in Space series filled that bill.

It featured strong male characters such as the leader of the family, Professor John Robinson. He was a family man with a dominant personality, leading his family, as a father should. The image to the left describes actor Guy Williams as Professor Robinson to a tee: "...the ultimate father figure symbol, powerful enough to handle himself in perilous situations, yet sensible and compassionate in matters of the heart..."




In today's Hollywood, this kind of actor (or the role he played) is shunned. In fact, it's the opposite of what they want to portray. But in the Sixties, even secondary male characters held their own. As in the pilot of the spacecraft, Major Don West. He was another strong and competent male character. And there was the "boy wonder" Will Robinson, who was just an adolescent, and the family's only son, but he was a progeny of sorts, as he was a scientific genius even at that age.

But wait. There were strong female characters too. Maureen Robinson, the mother of the family, was a strong personality, herself. Meaning she was not a whimpering, frightened female that would draw the ire of women's libbers. Not at all.

There were the two older daughters as well. I might confess here that their roles were minimal, and that was a shame because the oldest daughter, a beautiful blonde woman named Judy was the love interest for Major Don West. There could have been many story arcs that featured these two, but again, sadly, the producers or writers missed that one. Then there was the middle child, the teenage daughter Penny. She had more interactions with her younger brother Will than any other cast member and her role was never elaborated as it should have been.

And there was the "bad guy" Dr. Smith. He was the traitor hired by the enemy faction of the world order at the time to sabotage the spacecraft upon launching. But he was stuck in the ship at take off and became a permanent crew member and cast member from then on. He was always the one trying to do whatever he could to get back to earth even at the expense of the safety of the others. I remember thinking back then that if I were the captain of that ship, I would have killed the dude from the get go. And there were several times he should have been offed, but I guess the writers figured the story needed his comedic element. (It didn't.)

Lastly there was the robot, which was an important element of the cast as well. It was one of the first shows to feature a robot as a main character, and the precursor to later "robot characters" like the android "Data" from the Star Trek Next Generation series.

So the show was great, until it wasn't. Meaning it devolved into a farcical tale of goofy antics fit for a slapstick comedy. The show phased out all the serious elements of an adult SciFi series and turned it into a weird (and stupid) tale of Will and Dr. Smith. They even turned the robot into a joke. That wasn't what I ordered. And it faded into obscurity. Which was a shame.

Cast of Lost in Space the movie.
(Minus Judy, Will, and the robot.)
No complaints here.

But it had a legacy from which a movie some years later was released. It featured pretty much the same cast of characters who were all pretty much true to the original series. There were some differences in the way the story evolved, but it was a one and done story so what the heck. It passed.

But the Netflix reboot is a sham. Because they are doing what the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises have done. Which is they turned the men into weak and incompetent characters. It's the women who lead and who are the heroes now. I quit watching when it was revealed that Maureen Robinson is the professor now, and she is the one with the brains and she is the leader of the crew. And John Robinson is just another idiot, much like we've been seeing in pretty much every show from Hollywood over the last twenty years.

The new leader and hero of the crew of
Lost in Space from Netflix. The professorship has been
transferred from the man to the woman.
I wouldn't have minded if both were professors.
But Hollywood doesn't work like that.
Not anymore.

So the Netflix version of Lost in Space is great if you're a women's libber and you love to see weak men dominated by strong and heroic women. But that's not me. I will say once again, that I believe women are strong. They can be just as strong and just as heroic as men. BUT....that doesn't mean that when they are strong, the men have to be weak and dominated by them. That's a very tiring element from Hollywood, and I'm wondering when they will figure it out. The answer is they won't as long as the money keeps rolling in. And such is life, full of goose-steppers willing to call a show good just for its title.