Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Lost In Space’ On Netflix, A Reboot Of The ‘60s Sci-Fi Classic

The Year of the Reboot continues with Netflix’s fresh take on Lost In Space, the ’60s Irwin Allen classic brought to Netflix by Zack Estrin (The Whispers). Does it at least surpass the 1998 movie remake?

LOST IN SPACE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A group of people in space suits sitting around a table in a spacecraft — the people are of various ages and genders. The oldest male passes out cards that float in the air and counts them one at a time to each person. They’re playing Go Fish.

The Gist: The group are the Robinsons, a family who were on the 24th mission to start a new colony after a meteor crash on causes an environmental disaster on Earth. It’s not far in the future (we find out at some point that it’s 2048), and the family are part of a select group that’s tested and trained to go to the new colony. But right now, they’re on an escape ship that’s about to land on the unknown planet below.

Only some debris hits the ship and, instead of landing safely on the planet, it crashes on a glacier on the surface below. Robinson matriarch Maureen (Molly Parker), a research scientist, has a broken leg, but everyone else is OK. Dad John (Toby Stephens), who was away on various military missions in the years since the meteor hit, orders his family around like they’re underlings instead of children. Oldest daughter Judy (Taylor Russell), the family overachiever who was scheduled to go to medical school, volunteers to dive back to the ship, now sunken in a quickly-freezing pond, to retrieve a power source to keep them warm; instead she gets stuck as the water freezes around her.

Younger sister Penny (Mina Sundwall), forever jealous of Judy, tries to comfort her by reading her Moby Dick off her communication device as John and the family’s youngest, Will (Maxwell Jenkins) set off in search of a magnesium deposit Will noticed after they landed, since the magnesium should melt the ice enough to free Judy.

In flashbacks, we see the relationship this family has with each other; the kids love their dad though they rarely see him. Maureen and John’s marriage has splintered, especially since the meteor hit and he’s always been away on some sort of deployment. But Maureen is determined to have all the kids with her on the mission to the colony, so she attempts to ask John for custody and trades some sensitive tech in order for Will, a smart kid who doesn’t perform well under pressure, to get approved to leave.

Back on this mystery planet, Will falls to the bottom of the glacier while looking for magnesium, and takes shelter in the lush forest next to it while John goes back to Judy, promising he’ll come back for his youngest. While trying to figure out what to do, he finds an alien ship that also crashed, then meets with the alien itself, who has been split in half. After showing the alien some empathy and helping him find his lower half, the alien saves him from a fire, then reveals himself to be less spidery and more humanoid, albeit with a large glowing eye. He and Will go back to the glacier to save Judy from an icy grave just as the air in her space suit runs out.

Our Take: It goes without saying that Lost In Space is a rethinking of the campy 1960s Irwin Allen series. Yes, there was a move remake in 1998 —complete with Matt LeBlanc!— but let’s just take this show on its own merits, OK? This also means not comparing it to the original, mainly because it’s hard to compare 1960s sci-fi played for camp with 2018 sci-fi that’s got a sense of humor but is mostly serious.

That being said, the first episode does a great job of introducing us to the Robinson family, and shows us the dynamic between all its members. They all love each other — even, in a way, John and Maureen, though they’ve drifted apart. But the personalities of all of them are set up via those very effective flashbacks. Will is smart but freezes under pressure; Penny is never sure of herself, a little snarky, and super jealous of Judy. But when push comes to shove, they’re all there protecting each other. When Judy walks Penny through a procedure where she has to make large incisions to relieve pressure on Maureen’s injured leg, she helps Penny by telling her to envision cutting into a steak.

It was a good first adventure to set things up. And the introduction of the alien — no name yet, but after hearing Will say on a radio link that there’s a lot of danger about, he utters the immortal line spoken by the robot in the original: “Danger, Will Robinson.”

That is one of a number of homages to the original, like the original theme song playing over the end credits. But the ultimate homage comes in the last scenes, via another flashback. We’ll talk about that in a second.

Sex and Skin:  Nuttin’.

Parting Shot: We flash back to why the colonists had to escape the space station where they were living. As families, including the Robinsons — John thinks this is an overreaction — run into escape pods, we see a robot alien that looks very much like the one that Will encountered shooting and killing people. A disheveled woman (Parker Posey) grabs the coat of one of the injured people — it says “Dr. Z. Smith” on the badge — and weasels her way into a pod. When the two workers who are in with her ask her her name, she says “Dr. Smith.” The space station breaks apart, and many of the escape pods either get sucked into a void or get bashed by debris.

Sleeper Star: Obviously, we want to see Parker Posey as the self-possessed Dr. Smith. We get the feeling she’ll be more than a sleeper star as soon as Episode 2.

Most Pilot-y Line: Not that this is a bad thing, but if the doctor the mysterious woman steals the jacket from looks familiar, you’re not seeing things. But we’ll let you figure that out for yourself.

Our Call: Stream It. The effects are great, the chemistry between the actors playing the Robinsons is fantastic, and who doesn’t want to see more of Parker Posey?

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Lost In Space on Netflix