Flight Into the Future

I didn't remember seeing this episode before as I watched it just now. So it was fun to see one that was "new" to me. This is a pretty fun episode. You feel like you don't know what's going to happen next. Dr. Smith gets slapped, not once but twice. He doesn't like getting slapped. But he's too weak to do anything about it so that makes it kind of sad. The robot has a grand old time and even starts singing his own praises - literally. He has a decent singing voice. Not good enough to turn professional, but good enough to get by in a karaoke bar. The women looked immaculate as always, like they had just come straight from the beauty parlor. There must be lots of beauty parlors in space. One on every corner.

Anyway, it's a fun episode and be ready for anything. This is your flight commander signing off. Over and out.

After accidently departing the Jupitar, the usual threesome (and subsequent rescuers) end up on an alien world where space-time seems to be... inconsistent. The show's writing was becoming increasingly lazy (or rushed) and this episode opens with Smith, who 'last week' could explain the Jupitar 2's control systems to J5, launching himself, Will and The Robot into space by randomly hitting the 'go' button on the Space Pod. This results in the trio landing on a planet where they encounter a plethora of strange things, the reality of which the Robot keeps hinting at but never explains and, when the viewers are finally let in on the truth, little of the previous 50 minutes makes any sense. Even the episode's title appears be deliberately deceptive, as what it (along with a number of scenes) suggests turns out not to be the case (too bad - that could have made for a much more interesting denouement). Generally, a poorly written, tedious and nonsensical episode but fans of the usually underused Judy (Marta Kristen) will probably enjoy her apparent temporal doppelganger.

This is another favorite episode of my at least around number five in my book. It's another episode which features the "Lost Trio" Robot, Smith, and Will, these guys just always have the best adventures and this episode is another one of them.

The episode is somewhat of a mind frak episode because it not just plays around with the perceptions on the minds of all three characters but ours as well. One thing just seems to happen after another, or things do happen but then they don't all within a blink of an eye. I really like how all three react and are puzzled by the predicament they're in, were all in the same boat as them trying to make sense out of everything and are also asking the same question, what the heck is going on?

There are some funny moments like one where we see the Robot has a statue has been erected and we see Robot is singing a song with joy which cracks me up, yeah I'd probably react the same way if I ever saw a statue of myself that had a good word for me. But also, serious moments when Will talks with his descendant whom looks like Judy (course that is the same actress) along with a space commander from Earth and give him a little info on the future.

When the commander mentioned museum, Will has a sad look along with ourselves because he feels that's where he belongs. I just thought that small moment shows the flipside of the coin to visiting the future how it's not always such a wonderful thing not just from knowing too much about it but knowing how much time you lost when you weren't around in the present. But Will isn't sold on what they and this planet is selling, for nothing is what it seems.

Rating: 4 stars

The budget was cut on this flight, that is rather obvious when we see stock footage from year two's Wild Adventure (the sun), stock footage from year one's Island In The Sky (the Jupiter 2 crash), stock footage from year one's Giants In The Earth (the cyclops now in colour), I think I saw the rock monsters from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's The Fossil Men, and a parade of alien props seen in any number of LIS and Voyage/Sea episodes. No new music was created for this hour, it was all used before. Does this sound like a bomb? Well, yes, it sounds like one, but hey, at least it is often played straight (unlike year two) and some male viewers can lust over a more featured Judy Robinson.

This hour is not so much a quality time travel hour (Oh well) but rather a mix of things seen and heard in other sci-fic TV hours of the 1960s. Attention Star Trek fans! The alien voice artist for many 1960s Trek hours, such as The Guardian for City On The Edge Of Forever, lends his deep tones for an alien machine in Flight Into The Future. And he sounds identical to how he sounds in Star Trek. It must have been confusing for this artist to remember which space series he was on? On a low-budget stock-this and stock-that level, this hour is a bit like the coming soon Target Earth episode. Both Flight Into The Future and Target Earth could be viewed as poor, but if you forget the obvious, too obvious, budget problems, you will have a year three ball with them.

Added note: The 1998 LIS movie got ideas from this hour.