Lost in Space: Season 1, Episodes 22-24

22: The Challenge
After a number of great episodes, this lets the side down and is really rather run-of-the-mill and dull.
An alien father and son challenge Will and his dad to a meeting of skill and strength, and after a number of rather silly tasks, the alien duo ends up bonding over the fending off yet another hairy creature, and everyone wanders back to the Jupiter 2 for tea. Weird.
This episode doesn't have much to commend it, apart from the hilarious performance by the robot, which seems to have really cultivated its growing personality during its absence and become a wise-cracking cynic. Love the way it laughs in the face of Smith's inflated egotism!
The sexism in this story is criminal. Despite the fact the storyline itself touches upon the gender differences and the existence of feminism (even in space!), the girls are really let down by pathetic retorts to the mysogynist dialogue spouted (whether in jest or not) by the men. A real let-down. Why not have Maureen be the one who challenges the aliens and shows them the strength of womanhood and the values of equality? As it is we just get a well-trodden cliche with uninspired dialogue and some rather dreary acting.
Also lost in space: Michael Ansara (1922- ) had appeared in many TV programmes in the US prior to his appearance here, and has continued to enjoy a long CV, appearing in almost any TV series you can imagine, including genre shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Deep Space 9 and various animated Batman shows; Kurt Russell (1951- ) was a couple of years older than his character Quano in this episode, and had already appeared in series such as The Virginian, The Man from UNCLE and Gilligan's Island. He would go on to become a major Hollywood player, in films such as Escape from New York/ LA, The Thing, Backdraft and most the remake of Poseidon.

23: The Space Trader
"My masterpiece! My masterpiece!"
Although this is by and large a rather ho-hum episode, it is lifted by the scenery-chewing performance by Torin Thatcher as the titular character, and the wonderful exchanges between Smith and the robot, the latter of which has really developed its personality since War of the Robots.
I love the fact the robot won't take any shit off Smith any more, demanding apologies and generally reacting in quite a natural, human way to the rather nasty treatment he receives from the doctor.
The way the Robinson clan ostracises Smith after learning he has sold the robot fills me with joy - at last they react realistically to something Smith has done! Even the kids prefer not to speak to him, and this leads to a lovely scene between Smith and Will with the former trying to make the boy his friend, and Smith realising he has to put things right in order to maintain their friendship. A rare display of repentance from the doctor!
The Trader himself is a larger than life character with plenty of charisma, but his convoluted plan to obtain a human to sell for a huge profit makes the story rather plodding. He uses one of his machines to ruin the Robinsons' food crop in order to get them to trade the robot for food, assuming they will then ask for the robot back, for which the Trader will only accept a human being. As I said, convoluted!
Also lost in space: Torin Thatcher (1905-81) was a popular character actor in Hollywood, taking on evil, imposing and villainous roles in films such as The Crimson Pirate, Blackbeard the Pirate, The Robe and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

24: His Majesty Smith
A fun episode that sees some outrageously camp acting from Jonathan Harris, but thankfully moves on from knockabout comedy to a story that actually means something.
This story essentially points out the delightful distinction between Dr Zachary Smith as we find him and a potentially renewed, alternative "Daddy Zach" who has nothing but good to say or do. After 24 episodes of watching Dr Smith develop/ degenerate from a callous foreign spy to a high camp coward we finally get to make the comparison between the regular Smith and the kind of Smith we all think we would like to see.
But the new, pleasant, hard-working and conscientious Smith proves that simply being nice isn't half as interesting as the villainy the real Smith gets up to. At the end of the day Daddy Zach might be a better person to pass the time with (and a much better colleague to be stranded on an alien planet with limited resources with), but there's nothing quite as entertaining, refreshing and downright annoying as good old Dr Zachary Smith!
I couldn't possibly take the alien master seriously when, 20 minutes in, my partner pointed out the character's similarity to The League of Gentlemen's Pop (played by Steve Pemberton) - after that, no threat of any size or consequence that the hairy alien could pose had any impact or weight for me. 'Twas gone!
All in all a good episode, and one that scores extra points for the brief return of Maureen's washing basket. I hope it's in series 2 because I want to prove myself right that it is yellow in colour... !
Also lost in space: Kevin Hagen (1928-2005) sadly died last July of cancer, but enjoyed a long TV career in many episodic series, including a regular role in the 1980s as Dr Hiram Baker in Little House on the Prairie; Liam Sullivan (1923-98) was another popular US TV series guest actor, and toward the end of his career settled down as regular Dr Willis in Knots Landing.