Lost in Space review: Netflix’s Season 3 keeps a Star Trek dream alive

It debuted in 2018 and was relaunched. Lost in Space series was (according to Netflix’s self-reporting) watched by 6.3 million Netflix subscribers in its first 72 hours, one of strongest debuts on the platform that year. Streaming services have seen a tremendous boom in high-budget sci-fi TV. The ExpanseAmazon Prime and Disney Plus found an audience MandalorianCBS/Paramount Plus was expanded by one Star Trek series to four (going on five) — there’s more than any fan of the genre can keep track of, let alone watch. This goes double for series that debut on Netflix, whose “all at once” season drops mean that anything short of a smash hit completely disappears off the cultural radar in a matter of days. This is a very crowded arena. Lost in SpaceIt seems like he has lost it all.

Thankfully, this hasn’t kept showrunner Zack Estrin from completing his planned three-part arc for the series, which concludes when Season 3 lands on Netflix on December 1st. While it might be dismissed for its “Family Watch Together” label (as if Mandalorian isn’t as much for kids as for adults), Lost in SpaceIt is a fun, exciting and delightful space adventure, which stands out against ever-more complex universes. What’s more, Lost in Space rests in the Goldilocks Zone of rebooted intellectual properties — it’s got a strong central premise and a recognizable name, but there’s little else salvageable about the original work, allowing modern storytellers to take their version in whatever direction they choose without being weighed down by the pressure to “play the hits.” Instead, the finale of Lost in SpaceThe 23-hour journey is over and the focus shifts to its own conclusion, which makes it satisfying and appropriately saccharine.

Perhaps you already have some basic knowledge of 1960s history Lost in SpaceSeries, which is itself an riff on 1812’s novel Swiss Family Robinson. A family of five named the Robinsons set out from Earth to establish roots on Alpha Centauri. However, they are diverted by sabotage, and end up wandering between planets looking for a way home. Along for the ride are their military escort Maj. Don West, the devious stowaway Dr. Smith, and of course, the Robot, who has a fondness for the word “Danger!” The series grows ever campier over the course of its 83 episodes, as the Robinson family copes with space pirates, a space mummy, and even a giant sentient space carrot. While it was a hit with children in its time, it isn’t as well-received today than its NBC predecessor. Star TrekOr even BatmanThe direct competition in its time slot is.

Netflix Lost in Space series begins by adapting the broad strokes of the original’s pilot episodes (like Star Trek, Lost in SpaceThe Robinsons had two and so he tossed almost all the rest. The Robinsons were not the only family sent to colonize Alpha Centauri. The colonists crash-land on an inhospitable planet full of mystery and hazards as they travel to their new home. Over the course of three seasons, the Robinsons take turns saving each others’ lives and those of the rest of the colonists as they’re forced to make detour after detour on their way to their new home. The Robinsons, along with new take on Dr. Smith (comedy stalwart Parker Posey), Don West and Ignacio Serricchio are just a few of the other characters. Good girlsAll of these characters, including the Robot (the veteran actor Brian Steele as a robot), were original to this series. The ongoing mytharc in the which colonists are chased by the malevolent machines also has originality. The jokes are short and not very funny for those who have read the source material. invisible. This is unlike any other franchise offshoots available on the market. Lost in SpaceThere is no homework for you.

Photo: Eike Schroter/Netflix

Each Robinson has a unique set of skills. Maureen Parker (Molly Parker), Matriarch DeadwoodJohn Stephens (her husband) was a brilliant engineer and mathematician, who designed the colony ship designs. Black Sails() is a Navy SEAL. Judy Russell (Taylor Russell), is the eldest daughter. Escape Room(At 18 she is only a first-year intern, but has already accelerated her medical training for Alpha Centauri. Penny is the middle child. (Mina Sundwall). DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) is a talented writer, but since that’s not terribly useful in a survival scenario, she mostly serves as an impulsive counterbalance to the rest of her family’s rigid pragmatism. The youngest, Will (Maxwell Jenkins) shares his mother’s knack for the sciences, but he takes on an importance of his own when he rescues one of the hostile robots from a deadly predicament and gains his trust and friendship. The Robot becomes Will’s own personal superhero, protecting the family from physical dangers. (“Danger” is still his favorite word.)

The 1998 movie reboot was a success. Lost in Space injected an overdose of Gen-X angst into the Robinsons’ homelife, the family dynamic of the Netflix series is refreshingly functional. Conflicts within the family exist, but never explode into hyperbolic “I hate you, dad!” melodrama. While each person has their own baggage, they don’t have to be enemies. John’s commitment to his military career has put increasing physical and emotional distance between himself and the family prior to their departure from Earth, and he has to repair each of his neglected relationships. Penny, her middle child is the only one among her siblings that seems to have an interest in acting her age. She struggles with feeling adequate within a house of geniuses. Judy’s admiration for her parents has led her to set impossible standards for herself, and she has to learn to accept failure. The Robinsons are indirectly the source of each other’s problems but also the solution to them, and they’re fiercely dedicated to each other. This is what makes the Robinsons so great. Lost in SpaceThese are such good TV shows, despite their near constant peril.

Much of that peril, and the conflict of the series, is of the “humanity vs. nature” variety — alien eels who feed on their fuel, a virus that eats metal, etc. It is when Robinsons and his crew overcome natural hurdles with daring engineering feats that are the most entertaining moments in the series. During the first season, the colonists’ last hope of escaping a dying planet is to make direct visual contact with their mothership in orbit. Most of their fuel’s been gobbled up by those damn eels, and they’re just shy of what they’d need to send up one of their Jupiter landing craft. Their solution — gut the Jupiter of all its computers and guide its launch into space from the ground like it’s 1965. Nature and technology can be described as equally beautiful and deadly. Every victory in technology’s creation and operation is the result hard work of the humans who created it.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Photo by Des Willie/Netflix

Image courtesy of Netflix

Lost in Space is less successful at creating actual human antagonists, even struggling to make the most out of Parker Posey’s Dr. Smith. “Smith” is in fact a con artist who assumes the identity of a dead passenger in order to start a new life on Alpha Centauri but ends up stranded along with the rest of her colonist group. Smith poses as a family counselor to convince the Robinsons that she will help her get into power. However, Smith is neither menacing nor funny. Although her character gains more depth and offers redemption, Smith feels like an additional appendage most of the time. Season 2 pits the Robinsons and the officials aboard the colony vessel. Resolute, but this conflict doesn’t really have teeth, nor does the arc’s villain, Hastings (Douglas Hodge, The Great). Contrary all traditional storytelling wisdom Lost in Space is most interesting when everyone’s getting along and working together.

The storytellers of Season 3 seem to have learned their lesson and centered the plot around conflict between human colonists, as well as the alien robotic army that chased them throughout the galaxy. Circumstances have forced the colonists to split up by generation, with Judy Robinson leading the group’s 97 children to a new world while their parents draw the attention of the aliens and their leader, who the kids have named SAR (for Second Alien Robot). While the characters of humans are focused again on their survival goal, they now face an enemy with great technological advantages. There is no way to defeat the robots so the colonists will have to use cunning and avoid bringing the alien horde to Alpha Centauri.

To give every relationship closure, characters are moved around freely. Judy finally learns the fate of her long-lost birth father, which helps her recontextualize the effect she’s had on her mother’s life and vice-versa. Penny falls in love with Vijay, her awkward ex-boyfriend (Ajay Friese). Riverdale) and bland hunk Liam (Charles Vandervaart, Legacy: The CraftThis is only background for her finding her own self-confidence. John and Maureen cope well with separation from their children. Will and the Robot contemplate leaving the colony to pursue SAR on their own. Will is the character who has most obviously grown up, but everyone’s growth is given equal attention and feels equally organic. Even the Robot gets to complete his arc, even if it’s more or less a rehash of Iron Giant.

Photo: Diyah Pera/Netflix

The season projects “finale vibes” throughout and there’s the sense that anything can happen at any time, perhaps to a fault. The back half of the season feels like a marathon of climactic moments that could be the turning point of the story, but then aren’t. The final episode alone has three such twists before ending on the one that’s the least visually interesting, and the attempt to give every lead character their own shining moment of triumph within a limited time frame diminishes a bit from each. This is the only season that runs eight episodes instead of 10, and it’s possible that COVID-era production complications required the story’s final act to get compressed. While the path to the finish line is a bit jagged, the finale effectively hammers home each of the show’s overarching themes, namely the value of trust and the ability of each person (human or robot) to change their own programming.

Some systemic problems exist with Lost in SpaceThe third season seems to have failed to solve the problem. While the series adds a fictional disaster to accelerate the environmental decline of our planet, it’s still a fantasy about leaving behind a dying Earth rather than saving it, a fantasy that is unfortunately shared by the very few people alive who are equipped to decide all of our fates. While it’s explicitly stated that anyone who passes the colonization program’s rigorous tests earns a place on Alpha Centauri, this implied meritocracy would still heavily favor those with the money, time, and resources to train to become an astronaut. The fact that Don West, the only working-class character, is presented (at least initially) as a self-absorbed, narrow-sighted buffoon further reinforces the feeling that the show is classist. For a show that frequently expresses the importance of “leaving no one behind,” there’s little acknowledgement that MostHumanity has been left behind and will remain so.

Nevertheless, there’s still a lot of classic Star TrekIn the DNA of the future, idealism is in its DNA Lost in Space — a preference for communication and self-sacrifice over violence, an optimistic outlook on human nature, and a belief that “human rights” are not reserved for humans alone. You might also like Star Trek, this optimism doesn’t mean an absence of eye-catching action sequences, and the final threat to the Robinsons has the sense of scale and stakes to lend urgency and profundity to its message. Lost in Space’s production values are impressive, and there’s simply no overstating the value of Christopher Lennertz’s broad, Williams-esque orchestral score. Lennertz is inspired more by John Williams’s 1960s original music than his wonder-struck tone. Jurassic ParkThis is the perfect pitch for the series. There’s so much raw joy to be had in the adventure of Lost in SpaceThese flaws may be overlooked.

Within a week of the third season’s debut on Netflix, it’s likely that Lost in SpaceIt will likely be lost under a wave of new programming. Space sci-fi fans already have something to look forward too in South Korean thriller The Silent SeaThe movie “The Holiday” will be available on Netflix from Christmas Eve. It is easy to believe that all new content has an expiration date. However, this is false. Television has never been more reliable and accessible. Lost in Space is over, but does not have to disappear — you can find it any time you like.

Lost in SpaceSeason 3 of Netflix’s The Walking Dead is available now.