Here's a look at the old and new chariot

@Jetfire59 said:

They've aready lost me. The Jupiter 2, Chariot and robot are all WRONG!!!!!

What do you mean by “all wrong” ?

Both shows are over 40 years apart so there is bound to be artistic direction differences

I am with you - watched one episode and that was enough. It has all the hallmarks of so called modernisation with all the political correctness that entails. Jonathan Harris was a terrific Dr Smith, sly, cowardly, ruthless and incorrigible - now we have a "modern woman". No doubt it will turn into a female power series where men are mostly useless appendages. Ughh.

Aaaaand let the whining begin... "It's all wrong - wrong wrong wrong!!!! " "It's nothing like the original!" "The robot is wrong, the ship is wrong, the cast is wrong, the story is wrong... and and and, they have a.. a.. a.. Afro-american in the cast!?!?!?!?! IT'S AAAAAAAALL WROOOOOOOONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

• It's the fucking same every fucking time... sigh.

@ultraviolet said:

@Jetfire59 said:

They've aready lost me. The Jupiter 2, Chariot and robot are all WRONG!!!!!

What do you mean by “all wrong” ?

Both shows are over 40 years apart so there is bound to be artistic direction differences

Nope, its not allowed! Everything have to be exactly as in the original show, otherwise it's an abomination and everybody in the show and behind the show, like instructors, writers, producers, editors, gaffers and so on, should be eaten by zombies, furthermore NetFlix is an anti-American commie channel and they should be shut down, and everybody working there should be send to Guantanamo!

• or something like that.

Watching second episode...I'm so confused....

@Jetfire59 said:

They've aready lost me. The Jupiter 2, Chariot and robot are all WRONG!!!!!

Thank god I'm not that old to give a fark about them changing shiat.

@Bananaghost said:

Aaaaand let the whining begin... "It's all wrong - wrong wrong wrong!!!! " "It's nothing like the original!" "The robot is wrong, the ship is wrong, the cast is wrong, the story is wrong... and and and, they have a.. a.. a.. Afro-american in the cast!?!?!?!?! IT'S AAAAAAAALL WROOOOOOOONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

• It's the fucking same every fucking time... sigh.

People are entitled to an opinion. You always get angry when folks think differently to yourself?

Creative people take a risk when they take something already in the public arena and retool it. Obviously this sort of thing is often profitable, but it takes a lot of insight to know how far they can change things and not lose an existing fan base. I enjoyed this reboot and hope it gets another series, but it does have some problems:

1. The robot is cheesey, and not in a camp enjoyable way like the original version.
2. Maureen is a truly annoying character. Doesn't listen. Doesn't consult. Treats her husband like he's retarded. I get it that female empowerment is a positive thing to bring to media, but they missed the mark bigtime here. This character is like all the worst micromanagers you ever had the misfortune to work with. Yeah, good writers give their characters faults, but whoa, this person is unbearable.
3. Dr Smith is also annoying. A pantomime villain with no real comedy? C'mon, either play it for laughs like the original did or play it straight. A funny murderer requires a lot better writing, and acting, than this.
4. John is a buffoon. Is there a point to this other than to make the women look better?
5. Don is a buffoon. Ditto.
6. Will is clever but keeps screwing up. Ditto.
7. The cast looks like the United Nations but there is only one other kid apart from the Robinsons. Weren't these supposed to be families sent to the colony?

None of these beefs are deal breakers for me. but they are faults, imo. If writers and actors don't get feedback on what does and doesn't work then everything slides to the lowest common denominator.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

@Bananaghost said:

Aaaaand let the whining begin... "It's all wrong - wrong wrong wrong!!!! " "It's nothing like the original!" "The robot is wrong, the ship is wrong, the cast is wrong, the story is wrong... and and and, they have a.. a.. a.. Afro-american in the cast!?!?!?!?! IT'S AAAAAAAALL WROOOOOOOONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

• It's the fucking same every fucking time... sigh.

People are entitled to an opinion. You always get angry when folks think differently to yourself?

Creative people take a risk when they take something already in the public arena and retool it. Obviously this sort of thing is often profitable, but it takes a lot of insight to know how far they can change things and not lose an existing fan base. I enjoyed this reboot and hope it gets another series, but it does have some problems:

1. The robot is cheesey, and not in a camp enjoyable way like the original version.
2. Maureen is a truly annoying character. Doesn't listen. Doesn't consult. Treats her husband like he's retarded. I get it that female empowerment is a positive thing to bring to media, but they missed the mark bigtime here. This character is like all the worst micromanagers you ever had the misfortune to work with. Yeah, good writers give their characters faults, but whoa, this person is unbearable.
3. Dr Smith is also annoying. A pantomime villain with no real comedy? C'mon, either play it for laughs like the original did or play it straight. A funny murderer requires a lot better writing, and acting, than this.
4. John is a buffoon. Is there a point to this other than to make the women look better?
5. Don is a buffoon. Ditto.
6. Will is clever but keeps screwing up. Ditto.
7. The cast looks like the United Nations but there is only one other kid apart from the Robinsons. Weren't these supposed to be families sent to the colony?

None of these beefs are deal breakers for me. but they are faults, imo. If writers and actors don't get feedback on what does and doesn't work then everything slides to the lowest common denominator.

This remake/reboot is not intended to be camp/cheesy/etc, IMO. I believe the intention is to create a truly "serious" version of the original. I think the problem is, a lot of the characters are just not cutting it.

Maureen is not likeable. John is not really likeable. Judy... nope. Penny.. she's actually alright. Will... I'm not sure at this point. Dr. Smith (June Harris)... she's TOO manipulative (at least though the 5 episodes I've seen so far). She has no redeeming qualities (even the original Dr. Smith seemed to care about the family in the end, but I don't see Parker/Dr. Smith having any true feelings, aside from being a sociopath). Don West... I think they missed it with this character as well.

I mean, on it's own, the show isn't actually that bad. It's just when you start to compare it to the original that it falls short of the mark... and this may actually be by design, which I think is what the creators wanted to accomplish.

I'll have to watch the remaining 5 ep's and see how I feel about it at that point.

@joe33067 said:

This remake/reboot is not intended to be camp/cheesy/etc, IMO. I believe the intention is to create a truly "serious" version of the original. I think the problem is, a lot of the characters are just not cutting it.

There are a handful of moments where, if I didn't actually laugh, I got a smile out of it. When Smith drugs her sister and remotely 'nudges' her to slide over for example. The problem with that scene however is that we aren't immediately sure whether she has killed her sister or merely sedated her. Hard to laugh at cold blooded murder in a show that is, at least on the surface, taking a serious line. This is the core of the problem. The writers clearly want this to be able to be watched on multiple levels, and that intention can be seen occasionally, but the comedy is too poorly executed and the serious stuff is too dire.

Take the ironic Aliens reference in the cargo bay garage scene for another example. Here we are watching a life and death struggle and the writers expect us to drop out of 'the moment' to chuckle at an in joke. This stuff doesn't work. It might later on, but it will require better writing and better acting than we saw in the first 10 episodes.

The first series of the original Lost in Space was played straight for the most part. It was only after some low quality scripts and a lot of ad libbing from Harris that it morphed into the camp spectacular that became a monster of syndication. But I don't recall the original Smith every being an actual cold blooded murderer, altho he did give it a shot in the first episode. It was, after all, a children's show.

Just finished the last episode. I'm going to change my opinions about the characters. They all came through and delivered.... Even Dr Smith, if only because it was what she was expected to do. Hell, even the robot came through in the clutch. If they commission a season 2, I'll be there.

@Bananaghost said:

@ultraviolet said:

@Jetfire59 said:

They've aready lost me. The Jupiter 2, Chariot and robot are all WRONG!!!!!

What do you mean by “all wrong” ?

Both shows are over 40 years apart so there is bound to be artistic direction differences

Nope, its not allowed! Everything have to be exactly as in the original show, otherwise it's an abomination and everybody in the show and behind the show, like instructors, writers, producers, editors, gaffers and so on, should be eaten by zombies, furthermore NetFlix is an anti-American commie channel and they should be shut down, and everybody working there should be send to Guantanamo!

• or something like that.

LOL. I'm assuming this was factious. If so, bravo. If serious, go eat a bullet. But I think you were brilliantly mimicking mind-numbed zombies who spout that kind of nonsense, so kudos to you. If they want to see the original show, go watch the original show for crying out loud. This is not that. This is using the base premise and doing something different with it. "All wrong" doesn't describe the show, or any remake or re-imagining for that matter. It describes the small minds who think in such limited fashion, deigning to impose their own preconceptions upon a work of art instead of letting it tell them what it is.

@joe33067 said:

I think the problem is, a lot of the characters are just not cutting it.

Maureen is not likeable. John is not really likeable. Judy... nope. Penny.. she's actually alright. Will... I'm not sure at this point. Dr. Smith (June Harris)... she's TOO manipulative (at least though the 5 episodes I've seen so far). She has no redeeming qualities (even the original Dr. Smith seemed to care about the family in the end, but I don't see Parker/Dr. Smith having any true feelings, aside from being a sociopath). Don West... I think they missed it with this character as well.

This was the #1 problem for me. I liked (not loved) the original, enjoyed the camptastic remake movie enough, and was looking forward to this new version of the show. It seemed clear from the teasers that this would be a more serious approach. Wow. 20 min in and I had to turn it off. EVERYONE was so unlikable and inaccessible that I really couldn't care less if they all froze to death or not. Bitching, snarking, yelling, whining... bleech, too much on my queue to wait and see if those jerks developed personalities. Shame too, really like Parker Posey.

Damn, you missed the bit where John apologises to Maureen for being an absent father and everything is sort of hunky dory again. I mean, she's a single mother who marries a professional soldier and then complains that he actually does his job and gets deployed. Her response is to sue for divorce and take the kids to another world where he will never see them again.

And he apologises to her. It's like being in reverso world.

The Mom in this is really something else. I’m a long time married so it’s not a total shock that even Billions of miles from home and needing everything you have and everyone in your group to survive, a woman still holds a grudge and berates a man who would be a key factor in their survival. They should have had some scenes on the station where they hashed this out a little before the evac. I have no problems with all the modernization but the acting and characters is falling short. I’m glad there’s at least the Expanse for some quality sci-fi.

I’m only two episodes in and maybe it starts gelling but I have plenty to watch already. I’ll pass. Maybe I’ll check it again when there’s not much else going on.