In
“The Space Croppers,” Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris), Will (Bill Mumy), the Robot
(Dick Tufield) and Penny (Angela Cartwright) are confronted with an alien
werewolf while burying a time capsule of the Jupiter 2 settlement.
Professor
Robinson (Guy Williams) and the others have difficulty believing in such a
creature, but Smith soon encounters proof.
While working on a water pipeline, he encounters a group of
space-hillbillies. The group includes
Keel (Dawson Palmer), who can turn into the wolf, and space-witches Effra
(Sherry Jackson) and Sybilla (Mercedes McCambridge).
While
these space hillbillies plan to unleash man-eating plants on the unsuspecting
world of the Robinsons, Smith makes an attempt to romance and marry Sybilla, so
she will take him home to Earth…
Twenty-five
episodes in, and Lost in Space gives us space hillbillies.
These
outer-space beings fly about in a spaceship that looks like a moon-shine still,
and threaten the Robinsons’ with a dangerous harvest of carnivorous plants.
The
issue in terms of plausibility, of course, is that hillbillies arise from a
certain location on Earth, and the demographic that settled there. Hillbillies are of and from that particular
region. Their culture arises because of
the geography and because of demographic history.
So
what factors account for a race of space-going hillbillies? What set of circumstance gave rise to them,
on a cosmic scale?
Sadly,
Lost
in Space doesn’t tell us. This
is a key difference between Star Trek and Lost in Space. Star Trek, on separate occasions,
postulates a theory about parallel world development and about a race of aliens
seeding the universe with endangered races (The Preservers), thus explaining
the presence of familiar human cultures throughout the galaxy.
Lost
in Space
merely tosses out space traders, space croppers and so on, without explaining
the universe that gives rise to such familiar-seeming characters.
And
again, without an explanation, Lost in Space actually diminishes our heroes,
the Robinsons. Why? Well, even dopey Space Hillbillies are not
denied intergalactic space travel! They zip around the universe in their ships,
coming and going as they please.
But the Robinsons? No such luck.
These
good people, these scientists and explorers -- the best and brightest Earth has
to offer -- are stranded on a planet, and not given access to fly the universe of
hillbillies, pirates, traders, income tax, and so on.
One
wonders, why don’t any of these aliens ever offer to help the Robinsons? Why don’t the Robinsons ask for help,
either?
At
a conceptual level, “The Space Croppers” reeks. It’s all silly juvenilia. Think about it for
more than a minute, and you realize how implausible and half-baked it is.
“The
Space Croppers” is a half-thought-out story that does nothing to explain to audiences
exactly what kind of universe the Robinsons inhabit. The execution is slightly better, thanks to
Sherry Jackson and Mercedes McCambridge in amusing guest roles.
In
a bad story, like this one, one feels relieved that Jonathan Harris is present
to chew-up the scenery.
At least in this case, Dr. Smith’s antics distract one
from the utter lameness of the narrative.
Next: “All that Glitters.”
And the Space Ship of those space age hillbillies had those big speakers on the sides that played music
ReplyDeleteAnd Star Trek gave us Space Salt Vampires and even though it was the last of its kind, they just decided to kill it rather than just give the poor ugly thing Salt which it needed to survive. aND JUST how many exact Earth like planets are out there in the Star Trek universe? They ran into so many exact copies of Earth right down to tricycles that kids used. Was there any explaination for this? Never. How about the Spaxe hippies? Or treating ESP as if its fact. How about the great energy barrier surrounding our galaxy that gives people fantastic ESP powers? The most erregreous was the whole planet based on 1930s mobsters that the planet was based out of a book about Mobsters...so this book about Mobsters told the people there how to dress, and talk with Earth like mobster slang? Star Trek had enough holes in itself to fly a starship through.
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