Lost in Space: Season 2 [DVD] [1966]

This was the first season of 'LIS' to be filmed in colour and for me is the best of the 3 seasons. It is very different from the first season of "serious Sci-fi" storylines filmed in black-and-white. The 30 episodes start off with the Robinsons being forced to take off from the 'planet' that they were stranded on for the previous season. This leads into some excellent 'spacebound' episodes early in the season; most notably 'The Ghost Planet' with excellent production values, storylines and studio sets. They then crash land on a new planet which becomes their home for the remainder of the second season. After some early episodes featuring all the cast members, the episodes increasingly begin to centre around stories involving mainly Dr Smith, Will Robinson and the Robot, and these episodes have an increasing comedy flavour to them, which tends to be the main stay of this second season. Some excellent episodes are 'The Android Machine', 'The Wreck of The Robot' and the fans favourite 'The Golden Man' (strong moral messages in this episode). However, some episodes are so "over the top" as to be quite frankly ludicrous; notable examples of these are 'West of Mars', 'The Space Vikings' and the dreadful 'The Questing Beast'. Nevertheless these episodes are saved by their excellent production values. The video transfers on some of the episodes have rather "washed-out" colours with blunt definition while most of the other episodes are very clear, doing good justice to the DVD format. However, it is apparent that 'FOX' have not attempted to digitally clean up the pictures for this box set, which is rather a shame given that the technology to do this is easily accessible in the industry now, and it is also probably to do with the age and condition of the source material which must be now 38 years old!. Regardless of this 'FOX' should be heartily congratulated for bringing out this box set and for any fan of the series (or even if you are not!) this is a must have series which has stood the test of time. Rush out and buy it, it is great value for money, and roll on the third season!

If your principal memory of "Lost in Space" is the black and white "serious" science first season, this new set will come as quite a shock. Prepare for "Space Camp"(emphasis on the latter).
The lurid - in every sense - Season Two leaves the realm of reason (even sci-fi reason) altogether to inhabit its' own bizarre dimension of ludicrous, outrageous, laughable - yet somehow compelling - intergalactic panto. It could only have come from the decade that brought us Adam West's resplendent Batman (Where ARE the DVDs of that classic series?).
Jonathan Harris's scenery chewing, eye-rolling, hysterically shrieking Dr Zachary Smith (he makes Graham Norton look like Vin Diesel) is a virtuoso display of mincing tomfoolery. Billy Mumy's excellent Will Robinson remains the definitive template for all the boy geniuses that followed in his wake. The fab B9 Robot dramatically waves his limbs in dire warning at every over-the-top cowboy/ ringmaster/pirate/saladbowl-bedecked green woman who happens to drop in that week. At this stage the rest of the family are reduced to little more than walk-on parts.
It's totally daft - (don't expect any classic stories like the first seasons' "Return from Outer Space" or "Mr Nobody") - but totally great. They actually COULD'NT make them like this anymore - the Irwin Allen gene is lost to science. A "must have" slice of T.V. history.(One star dropped for the bifocal wearing basset hound).

I first bought this series two 'Lost in space' for my son (age 9) and he loves it (it is packaged just like the series 1 set). We watch about an episode or two a week (so have weeks to go). The series 2 was 'Lost in space' as I remember it: classy and very bold colourful sets, funny, with an increasingly camp Dr Smith having more catch phrases than Arthur Askey ("Spare me the barbs Major", "You posturing ninny"). In fact the robot's tagline 'It does not compute' was a favourite phrase of mine during my schooldays. I did vaguely remember the B&W first series as well (particularly the excellent first few episodes concerning leaving Earth eg. 'The reluctant stowaway') and knew Dr Smith, the Jupiter II and the crew were all present and correct. However I had forgotten how dark, menacing and calculating Dr Smith was compared to this second series. My son found series one too frightening to watch past the first few episodes, and was particularly disappointed with the B&W TV images - although I found these episodes far more interesting than those in the second series - but even I did miss the series 2 gaudy colour, although the B&W sets and effects are just as 'good'. By this second series the title should have been changed to 'The Dr Smith, Will Robinson and Robot show', where the comic talents of Jonathan Harris, Billy Mumy and Bob May (inside the robot) are increasingly in evidence (nicking some of competitors Batman's camp visual style) - this is reflected in this DVD set's cover art. The third series corrected this imbalance a little, giving other short changed cast members better parts.

So if you are buying for your children I would miss series one and skip straight to this series two, giving a two minute intro. But if you want a bit more bite then go for series one as well. Be warned though there are around thirty episodes in this 8-disk DVD collection - over twenty hours of prime time TV from 1966/1967 (Series One is the same length but from 1965/1966 and in B&W). So very good value at least, and the picture quality and production values of these series 2 (and 1) DVD's is top notch. The set has English language and English subtitles only. No extra's, although in both the very nice packaging includes a cute little pull-out booklet of the episodes and characters. In 2008, when we get through all 50+ episodes from series 1 & 2, we may risk series three despite the very poor DVD picture quality warnings from other reviewers. The expected fourth season of Lost in Space was ironically cancelled despite high ratings, due to Fox's financial disaster with Cleopatra reducing the available budget of Lost in Space to a point where creator, Irwin Allen, refused to continue.