The Derelict

Many like to cite (justifiably so) the music of John Williams (principly from episodes one, three, and seven) as one of the great assets of "Lost in Space," but episode two, "The Derelict," boasts a fine score from the often overlooked Herman Stein. No stock music here; he wrote this beautiful programme music particularly for this episode, and it considerably heightens the dramatic qualities of many scenes, along with much of the almost 'noir' lighting. One can tell that Stein was well acquainted with the dissonance of Stravinsky, Bartok and the like, and put his knowledge of classical composition and orchestration to good use.

Many of the scenes are almost like a silent movie: music and visuals with little or no dialog characterise long stretches in the narrative, and with fine results. The acting is average but adequate, with the exception of Jonathan Harris whose sinister portrayal of Dr. Smith (not at all the camp incarnation that would later become world famous) is a marvel to behold. His modulation of voice and expression makes him by far the most compelling character in these early episodes. The second half of "The Derelict" is unquestionably an early inspiration for Ridley Scott's "Alien" film (1979) with its semi-organic alien spaceship interiors.

A fine sophomore effort in a series that quickly degenerated into a silly competitor with "Batman," originally aired at the same time on a rival network in the United States.

The Robinson's ship runs into a gigantic mother ship, it attracts them like a magnet to its interior. Dr. Smith is convinced that it is a foreign ship belonging to the spies he serves. But when he finds that it is inhabited by strange creatures, he only manages to attack them, which causes the aliens to chase them, fortunately they manage to get out of it in time. The episode is very good, maybe a little slow but correct. The interior of the ship is simple but gloomy and gloomy in appearance.

In January 1965, the pilot episode, "No Place To Hide", was filmed, largely in the Mohave Desert. CBS network executives, as well as story editor Tony Wilson, thought that the series needed another cast member - - a 'troublemaker' character, who would create conflict and thus be the catalyst for new stories.

The character of Dr. Smith was thus created to be this troublemaker. And hey, as long as we're tinkering with the cast, let's add a cool- looking robot to the crew. It's a science-fiction show, after all, and every good sci-fi series ought to have a robot, shouldn't it?

Four of the first five episodes -- The Reluctant Stowaway, Island in the Sky, There Were Giants in the Earth, The Hungry Sea -- were created by intercutting footage from the original pilot episode with newly-filmed scenes featuring Dr. Smith and the robot.

But "The Derelict" is unusual in that it was written so as to take advantage of an existing film set from "Fantastic Voyage", a major motion picture that was being filmed at Twentieth Century Fox studios in mid-1965, at the same time that Lost In Space was being filmed at the same studio.

This is one of the finest examples of the cost-conscious nature of producer Irwin Allen. Some have called him 'cheap' -- and he was -- but it was a great idea to re-use the Brain Set from "Fantastic Voyage" as the interior of the derelict spacecraft. Under-lit and seen mostly in shadow, the Brain Set made for a wonderfully creepy set for this episode, and was probably a more-expensive set than this series would normally have been able to afford.

Really, really out of this world, superb and magnificent stuff. This classic seems to actually get a semi-bad rap quite often, and I find it rather amazing that I find myself having to defend the SECOND episode of the series so much. The usual comment is that it is "too slow in parts." Oh, my..what in the world do you want?!? Like Robert says, this one is totally 'five out of five stars'..just like the other fabulous first five best episodes of the series. It is a complete, moving, and interstellar epic. This would be the only one of the first five to not really have (hardly any) original footage from the original pilot, "No Place To Hide." They apparently decided to add an entire episode in there to stretch the fabulous epic out some more. Perhaps this is the reason why a bit of it may appear as 'filler' or "slow," in the words I have seen rather often. To that I would answer that the pacing is just perfect throughout. This one is set up absolutely beautifully. This episode is very eerie and downright spooky a lot. The tense, exciting, and stellar ending more than makes up for any given "slower" periods..periods very nicely building up the atmosphere. This whole episode is a great atmospheric story..and that does not even count the great, great, great incidental background music scores from Herman Stein (who would return again), and whoever else may have helped with the music here (Hans J. Salter?).

There were several just purely 'simple' scenes here..warm scenes..beautiful scenes..sad scenes..scenes to introduce us more to the characters and invite us to get to know more of their personalities and relationships.

Of course, the Jupiter 2 spaceship encounter with the massive, mysterious spacecraft is completely epic and fantastic stuff. And one of those very simple and quaint scenes that I speak of, is just fabulous to me (they all are actually)..but this one tends to bring a tear to my eye..which can definitely happen a lot in these B&W episodes, by the way. Before the encounter with the huge derelict, at the upper deck control console, we have the first 'real' exchange between the handsome Major West and the lovely Ms. Judy Robinson. I cannot recall the entire conversation right now, but Major West talks about Judy should be getting sleepy, and asking her something about if she would like to go home. Judy's last line of the exchange is, "I never did like school"..as the Herman Stein beautiful "family theme" music begins for the very first time. Right there, that music, is some of my very, very favorite of all, always used in the very sentimental and sadder moments. As the music is playing, and immediately following, the scene segues to hearing a tape recording coming from inside Ms. Penny's cabin below decks. Her father opens her sliding door, listens for a moment, and asks, "Shakespeare?"

I absolutely, absolutely love those little, simple scene..and every other scene contained within this story. There is no way this story should receive less than five stars (in Robert's older grading system it is a 9.5). "The Derelict," in fact, is a 9.7 for me. I think this may be Robert's second favorite episode of the whole shebang. It is just about there for me as well, and we both LOVE the music scores here.

One additional note..this is the first of the next four episodes where we do not see the usual "Written by" in the opening credits. Instead, we see "Teleplay by" and "Story by." This is obviously because the story for the entire first five (pilot) episodes was from Shimon Wincelberg. However, a different writer did write the screenplay or in between "Teleplay" for each. The great Peter Packer, who would go on to write more episodes of LOST IN SPACE than anybody else, is here already for his very first contribution..and the episode is directed by 'one-director-wonder' Alex Singer. A lot of these very early episodes were directed by 'one-shot' directors, interestingly enough.

A continuing B&W epic for the ages..

LosT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~jim~~~~~~~~~

iN

SpacE

The Jupiter 2 encounters a derelict spacecraft in space.

With the exception of the Land Of The Giants pilot episode of 1968, I can't think of another hour of TV where the musical score was so totally vital to the hour. I would even go as far as saying, if you don't like the music of The Derelict...you will not be on the same page as this episode!

There is almost a non-stop parade of music in the whole 50 minutes, normally a TV episode has just one composer but The Derelict required three composers (Richard LaSalle, Hans J. Salter and Herman Stein) because just so much music was required.

Also good to listen to are the Dick Tufeld narrations at the beginning and end of the hour.

Jonathan Harris as Dr Smith is in top form, the effects are outstanding and The Derelict contains the crew's first close encounter with space aliens.

This is the 2001 of TV space adventure, slow but filled with wonder, music and mind-blowing images.

Ep 1: The Retuctant Stowaway and Ep 2: The Derelict together form a 100 minute space adventure that is even more pleasing than Star Wars and 2001 put together.

I can't speak highly enough about this hour.