The Space Croppers

For this series, which despite my childhood love I can realize was not exactly the zenith of television -- this episode was really a good one. In watching it on DVD recently, I was amused at how thoroughly Jonathan Harris and Mercedes McCambridge enjoyed their roles. Sherry Jackson too. All three of them should be congratulated -- Harris and McCambridge posthumously -- for a job well done.

This is the episode I remember best, and the one that scared me the most as a six-year-old. Penny, Will, and Dr. Smith are filling a time capsule with items from the Jupiter Two, intending to bury the capsule and leave it for future inhabitants of their adopted planet to find. Night falls and Dr. Smith starts blubbering about full moons and werewolves when they hear what sounds like a wolf howl. Sure enough, there's a werewolf on the loose -- although this one seems more inclined to gesture for people to stay away from him than to leap for their throats.

Turns out the werewolf isn't the only newcomer to the planet. A sort of Hillbillies-in-Space family has arrived, intent on "plantin' us a crop and garnerin' us a harvest" of mysterious plants that look sort of, well, hungry.

Mercedes McCambridge didn't land a job voicing a demon in "The Exorcist" for nothing. As the matriarch ("It's Mother; not Ma," she snarls) of the hillbilly clan, she keeps giant, mute son Keel (Dawson Palmer) and sexy daughter Effra (Sherry Jackson) on a short leash. Not quite short enough to keep Effra from flirting with Maj. Don West, however, which allows us to be amused by Judy Robinson's indignant response.

Dawson Palmer played many of the costumed monsters in the Lost in Space series. This is one of the few in which we actually see him OUT of costume.

A family of farmers arrives on the planet, their behavior is quite hostile, the boss is quite sinister, the daughter does black magic and the son turns into a werewolf at night, they are a mixture of The Beverly Hillbillies and The Adams family but from space. Too bad the production repeated the same resource used in the episode The Monster Plants to make an ending almost traced to that episode.

Mercedes McCambridge and her fellow hillbillies drop in on the lost planet.

Right down to the country musical score, this is a western in space. The writer - Peter Packer - had a history of scripting TV westerns so he brought this genre into a few episodes of LIS.

Will comments that the alien space craft is "all open up" and is told "we close it up in space". In later episodes such explanations to the opened up space crafts were never given, such as in season two's West Of Mars.

Space Croppers in a fine episode of LIS thanks mostly to the acting talents of Mercedes McCambridge. In 1962, four years before this, she appeared in a Bonanza episode titled "The Lady from Baltimore" where she was once again a tough cookie and once again had a cute daughter up to no good. This Bonanza hour should be seen by all fans of The Space Croppers.

Dad-gum space hillbillies who are also witches and were-wolves seed the Robinson's adopted plant with giant, carnivorous plants, meanwhile Ma Sybilla seems to be taken by Dr. Smith's self-serving romantic overtures. The silly story makes little sense and seems cobbled together from two distinct concepts: one involving a Lil'Abner aesthetic, the other kid-friendly horror-comedy motifs. Bodacious Sherry Jackson looks ridiculous in her Daisy Mae outfit, but is outdone by her towering, rag-attired silent brother Keel (Irwin Allen's usual 'man in the monster suit' Dawson Palmer). The episode's only saving grace is acid-tonged Sybilla (Mercedes McCambridge). Jonathon Harris's 'Dr. Smith' continues to descend into caricature and the show's frugal recycling of props and 'special effects' remains apparent. Once again the cargo that the Jupitar 2 carried into interplanetary space continues to amaze me - this time it's pith helmets. Dumb.

The Space Croppers gets my vote as the worst Season One episode, slightly ahead of "The Lost Civilization". It is basically a better-than-average Season Two episode that seems way out of place for Season One.

The ridiculous Hillbillies in space theme, compounded by the nonsensical plot make this a mess to watch.

Dr. Smith is an imbecile through-out most of this. However, he does generate some laughs when he make some funny Lou Costello-type faces when describing the werewolf, with a great one-liner about the Robot being his best man in is wedding and a few zingers towards the Robot!

Major West is uncomfortable during his interactions with Efra and it just seems out of place.