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Island in the Sky: Directed by Anton Leader. With Guy Williams, June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen. While spacewalking Doctor Robinson is pulled down onto a planet. Major West lands the ship to search for him.
- (302)
- Adventure, Comedy, Family
- Anton Leader
- 1965-09-29
- Overview
- Some notes on scientific accuracy
- Background Information
Guided by a catalog of planets found aboard an alien spaceship, the Robinsons have located a marginally habitable planet nearby where they can put down for major repairs that can only be undertaken under gravity.
Unwilling to land before investigating conditions on the planet, John decides to make the descent using parajets, arm-mounted rockets that will take him safely down to the planet's surface for exploration. When he is nearing the planet, John's parajets begin to malfunction and all communication with the Jupiter 2 is lost. Smith seizes the opportunity to employ The Robot to force Don and Maureen to abandon John and return the ship to Earth immediately. Seemingly complying with Smith's order, Don suddenly throws the ship into a violent manoeuvre that allows him to restrain Smith long enough to force him to order the Robot to leave the control deck. After placing Dr. Smith in suspended animation, Don and Maureen take the ship down to the planet.
The Jupiter 2 crashes on the planet due to an earlier act of sabotage by Dr. Smith of the ship's rockets. The Robot is sent out to analyze the environment before anyone is allowed to leave the ship to look for John. Although only marginally habitable, the planet will sustain life. The Robinsons soon assemble the chariot and begin to search for John.
As they search, they come across a small ape-like creature. Penny impetuously asks if she may keep it, but her mother angrily refuses, preoccupied with finding her husband. When she realizes the devastating effects of her words, though, she relents, and Penny names the creature Debbie. Back at the ship, the Robot frees Dr. Smith from suspended animation, having been programmed to monitor his well-being at hourly intervals. The search party eventually find John trapped in a chasm, tormented by electrical discharges that have rendered him almost completely helpless and destroyed his radio.
Upon reaching the Jupiter 2, they are shocked to find Dr. Smith revived; they seem to expect a confrontation, but Dr. Smith is strangely conciliatory and apologetic. Soon after, Dr. Smith issues new orders to the Robot. It is to eliminate all members of the party except Major West, who will be needed to pilot the ship. The Robot is to use every opportunity to find the individual Robinsons alone and kill them with no witnesses so that their deaths may be attributed to adverse reactions to unknown elements in the planet's atmosphere.
Against his father's orders Will goes to the chariot that night to make repairs. While Will is at work, the Robot follows him to carry out Dr. Smith's order. Ignoring Will's orders to stop, it continues to approach him while discharging powerful electrical bolts from its claws.
In the first episode of Lost in Space, we are told that the Jupiter 2 will take five and a half years to reach our sun's nearest stellar neighbors in the Alpha Centauri system. The Robinsons are to be placed into a state of suspended animation for the duration of this lengthy voyage. Now, just two episodes later, without any more time spent in suspended animation, the Jupiter 2 has reached a habitable Earthlike planet orbiting another star. Since the Alpha Centauri system (which actually consists of three stars- Alpha Centauri A and B, and Proxima Centauri) is the closest other star system to Earth, the Robinson's planet must be even further away. How did they get there so quickly? The Jupiter 2 is said to have traveled in hyperspace beyond the speed of light. In narration, professor Robinson tells us that travel in hyperspace could have propelled the ship anywhere in our galaxy. In reality, physicists studying Einstein's general theory of relativity have identified exotic methods of faster than light travel, including wormholes and space warps. However, such methods would require truely immense quantities of energy, and it's hard to see how the Jupiter could have acquired such an ability by accident through damage to its navigation system. It's like supposing that smashing the GPS system in your car would suddenly cause it to develop the ability to make a suborbital flight to Europe.
The other main item for comment in this episode are the parajets, small wrist mounted rockets that supposedly brake John Robinson from orbital speed and allowed him to fly over a planetary surface. Special effects being what they were at the time, we don't actually get to see this. When John is near the surface we just hear his voice on the radio. It's a good thing, because it's really hard to imagine someone flying with rockets mounted on their wrists. I don't even much need to remark on the lack of room for the needed fuel for this device. Real jetpacks developed in the '60's could only fly a few minutes due to fuel limitations and they had big fuel tanks on the wearers back. John also had no heat shield to protect himself from the heating due to atmospheric friction when entering a planetary atmosphere. As wild as it sounds, NASA actually did develop an orbital bailout scheme that would have allowed a real astronaut to do something like what John Robinson did in this episode. It was called MOOSE (Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment) and was small enough to fit into a suitcase. It consisted of a rocket motor to de-orbit the astronaut and an inflatable shelter to be filled with polyurethane foam. The shelter served as a heat shield during atmospheric reentry and as a cushion on landing. A parachute, radio transmitter, and survival kit completed the device. Of course, it wouldn't have provided something that John Robinson needed: a way to return to the Jupiter 2 in orbit. The parajets were supposed to do that too. Yeah, sure... and there are hillbillies, circus masters, and department store clerks out in space too. Another grounds for comment are Don West's and the others conduct around Debbie the bloop. Approaching and picking up a wild animal, even here on Earth, would be a foolhardy thing to do. Approaching an unknown alien wild animal on another planet and picking it up is beyond stupidity. This would be a great way to discover how alien wild animals protect themselves from predators.
•This episode begins a multi-episode arc with the Robinsons, for now, stranded on this new planet.
•This is the first time the chariot is used. Don makes specific reference to assembling the vehicle, which is implied to be a one-person job, though Will assists.
•Besides his talents as a screenwriter, Norman Lessing was also an expert chess player and was acknowledged as same by the United States Chess Federation; thus, having characters here playing chess is not surprising.
•The writer co-credits were probably due to a rewrite of Shimon Wincelberg's orignal work to accommodate the inclusion of Dr. Smith. Wincelberg is listed as a writer on many early scripts and worked with Irwin Allen on the original premise of the show when it had neither Smith or the Robot. As the first episodes include much of the original pilot's footage, chances are Allen paid other writers to add scenes that would enable him to use the footage in an episode that was consistent with the revised format.
•Smith refers to the "green hills of earth", the title of a short story by Robert Heinlein.
•This marks the only time in the series that the Robinsons' EVA 'Parajets' were used. The third season's space pod makes the Parajets obsolete. As the Pod was not added to the props until the third season, it was not available for use by Professor Robinson in this episode. In-universe, the clear dangers demonstrated by the parajets' use provide a sound reason for them not being used again. However, if this equipment was available, and was advanced enough to allow a human to not only do an EVA but land safely on a planet, why weren't they used by John in "The Reluctant Stowaway" when he did his EVA or utilized to rescue him when his line broke?
Besides the breathtaking blend of sight and sound of the out-of-control Jupiter Two, slicing through the alien sky, the episode features a sinister Dr. Smith, responsible for the malfunction of the rockets that causes the crash.
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Island In The Sky - Lost In Space Forever. Original Airdate: September 29, 1965. Both the parajets Professor Robinson uses to survey the planet and some of the rockets on the Jupiter 2 fail, leading to crash landings. Suspicions fall on Dr. Smith. Download Episode Watch Episode Online.
Directed By: Anton Leader. Written By: Norman Lessing, Shimon Wincelberg, Irwin Allen. Lost in Space. S1 • Episode 3. Island in the Sky. Air Date: Sep 29, 1965. User Score Available after 4 ratings. tbd. My Score. Hover and click to give a rating. Add My Review. Where to Watch. Prime Video (Subscription required) All Watch Options.
