I try not to binge watch these days. The problem is, you end up watching a whole season in a weekend, and by the time the next season comes around, you forget everything and have to watch the whole thing over again. I prefer spacing things out these days. One thing kids today probably don’t appreciate is that my generation was too small for the entertainment industry to really cater to. Gen X got recycled Baby Boomer culture. We watched the same shit our parents watched when they were kids. So most Xers are pretty well acquainted with shows from the 1960s like “Lost in Space,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Bewitched,” or “Hogan’s Heros.” My mom watched “Star Trek” TOS as a teenager, and what did I end up watching with her in syndication? We were fans. I remember mom crying at the end of Star Trek II the Wrath of Kahn (Best. Star Trek. Ever.) when Spock died.
I’ve been watching the “Lost in Space” remake. The original series is one of those shows I used to watch on daytime TV if I was home sick from school. It was on Netflix or maybe Amazon for a while, and I rewatched it. I was surprised by how well the early episodes held up. The show went downhill in later seasons, but the early seasons are still pretty good. The remake borders on being really good, but it never quite reaches it. In terms of excellence in remaking old sci-fi shows… the Battlestar Galactica remake before it went off the rails… that was excellent. This could have been that good, because they are using talented actors, writers, and clearly have decent budget.
I agree with the Federalist that the new LiS anti-gun plot line is “forced and ludicrous.” Seriously, your on-board 3D printers can make firearms, and you’re having people fashion spears to battle alien predators? Are you fucking kidding me? In the original series, Will Robinson used guns like, well, of course he would use guns. I find myself through the entire series saying to the TV: “You know what would be pretty useful right about now? Some fucking guns.”
I don’t have any issues making Dr. Smith a woman. There’s no reason that character has to be male. But the original Smith sometimes had redeeming qualities. I find myself wondering why they don’t just suck the current Smith out an airlock and be done with it. She’s cartoonishly deceitful. She’s like Hillary Clinton without all the Chardonnay. The Smith remake could have been pretty excellent if they wrote her better. They almost wrote a compelling character.
Men in the show have been dumbed down. This is something the Battlestar Galactica remake did not do. It introduced strong women characters, but without diminishing the male characters. In the original LiS, John Robinson was a capable person. In the remake, he’s not really. He’s kind of a brute. Everything that John Robinson was in the original series has been transferred to Maureen Robinson. She’s the brains. She’s also a bitch. I find the reboot Maureen to be very unlikable. And it’s not like the original Maureen Robinson was June Cleaver, so why did they feel the need to do this, other than virtue signaling?
The new Robinson dynamic detracts from the story. They even dumbed down Will a bit with the unnecessary subplot that he didn’t actually qualify for the mission, and mommy had to pull strings. I actually like the Don West remake. There’s a bit of a swindler element to him that I don’t remember in the original character, but as a whole his character works.
Despite the problems I’ve outlined, the show is very watchable. Some of the other SciFi series on Netflix I just can’t get into. Good acting and writing makes up for a lot, even if there are aspects of the characters that are eye rolling.
Has anyone else been watching it? What do you think?
