In this binge-watching world we find ourselves living in these days, there is one streaming series that perpetually gets “lost" in the shuffle.
That series is Netflix’s “Lost In Space.”
When the first season of “Lost In Space” debuted on Netflix in April 2018, Bridget and I were surprised at how compelling the 10-episode narrative proved to be.
The series returned for a second season on Christmas Eve 2019.
It is far too often that “edgy” becomes synonymous with “compelling” as it regards entertainment in the 21st century.
That wasn’t the case when I was growing up in the 1980s. The beloved movies of that decade were productions that largely appealed to a wide swath of age groups and demographics.
The second season of “Lost In Space” picks up seven months after the climactic events in the first season. The Robinson family is “lost” on a planet in a different solar system (a fate that has its roots in events from the first season finale).
The planet features large oceans and black-sand beaches. The family has set up their Jupiter 2 spacecraft on one of the beaches, and crafted a makeshift greenhouse to grow food.
Filming for the exteriors took place in Iceland (a popular shooting locale featured in movies like “Thor: The Dark World”).
It is Christmas Eve as the season begins. The date is significant. The event that caused the Robinsons to leave Earth in the first place (as part of the 24th Colonist Group) was “The Christmas Star” asteroid — which caused calamitous environmental effects.
We have a nice scene of our family enjoying Christmas Eve together in their spacecraft. They have a tree made of cornstalks and some of the planet’s luminescent moss.
Roughneck/smuggler Don West (Ignacio Serricchio) — a low-rent Han Solo-type — is celebrating with them. Unstable con-artist Dr. Smith (Parker Posey) is being kept under lock-and-key after her shenanigans in the first season.
It’s a nice sequence that sets the tone for the new season, and “re-introduces” fans to the core cast of characters.
One of the gifts presented during the scene is a memoir Penny (Mina Sundwall) wrote about the family’s adventures — that her brother Will (Maxwell Jenkins) bound into book form — titled “Lost In Space.”
Penny serves as a nice juxtaposition with some of the other science and tech-minded characters on the show. As she writes in her memoir, “I don’t believe in things just because they make the equations add up.”
I will say that 20 months was a long stretch between seasons. I had to go back and re-read my review of the first season to familiarize myself with it.
Even so, I felt a bit “lost” during the early stages of the second season as a result.
Netflix (to their credit) released a recap video featuring some of the show’s cast:
Netflix (to their credit) released a recap video featuring some of the show’s cast:
Despite having established a certain “comfort level” on the planet they are stranded on, a sequence of events (spurred by a breech in the greenhouse wall) causes the Robinsons to evacuate.
Maureen (Molly Parker) has devised a method to harness the power of the planet’s recurring lightning storms (occurring every 23 days) to charge the ship’s batteries. That hypothetical soon becomes an “in the field” experiment when tragedy strikes their homestead.
This forces family patriarch John (Toby Stephens) out of his comfort zone. He doesn’t want to risk the lives of the kids, and would prefer to stay on the planet another year. This is where the old adage “Man Plans and God Laughs” comes into play.
It’s these sorts of no-win crisis points that make the story arcs in “Lost In Space” so compelling. As I wrote in my review of season 1: “It feels like the writers drew inspiration from films like ’The Martian’ and ‘Interstellar.’”
There are no easy solutions in this iteration of “Lost In Space.” Science, math, ingenuity, and know-how all come into play.
Our protagonists (back in space) eventually make their way to the abandoned Resolute — the large transport ship that attempted to shuttle our colonists to Alpha Centauri during the first season — after they pick up the large ship’s audio signal in space.
The visuals and special effects are once again top-notch — as they were during the first season. The overall production value of the “Lost In Space” series is quite handsome.
It seemed like less time was spent “on location” in planet settings during “Lost In Space” Season 2.
Significant plot lines take place on the Resolute. This was a change of pace from the “Swiss Family Robinson”-like exploits of the first season — where considerable time was spent in nature. I’d imagine filming on a soundstage is more cost effective than being on location the entire production.
That said, there are some entertaining sequences on a desert planet (which includes some visual FX action pieces involving creatures resembling the velociraptors in “Jurassic Park” and “Jurassic World”).
I don’t want to dive too deep into major plot points and spoilers.
In addition to the main storyline, there are some nice flashback scenes with John and stepdaughter Judy (Taylor Russell).
These moments add texture to the family dynamic, and provide details on how Judy came to be with the Robinson clan — information that will assuredly come into play during the show’s third season.
The character I enjoyed the most during the second season was Don West. Not only does he have some terrific one-liners, actor Ignacio Serricchio brings a lot of heart to the role.
One of West’s best lines comes during a moment of crisis, when John and Maureen face certain doom (during the season’s ninth episode).
Judy (a doctor on the mission) is caring for an ailing West when her parents make contact via her comm device. A woozy West removes his oxygen mask and says, “Is something wrong? Of course there is. I don’t even know why I ask anymore.”
Moments of levity like this help ground the show. Science fiction is a genre that can suffer when it’s overly melodramatic.
There are instances where some of the season’s antagonists come across as overly conniving. While that trait is expected with an unhinged player like Posey's Dr. Smith, it’s hard to understand why some of the others are so unscrupulous. Be that as it may, the writers do a fairly decent job of keeping things balanced overall.
Speaking of Posey, her story arc as Smith was pretty intriguing during the second season. I was wondering what more they could do with her character (besides having her play the constant foil).
Posey’s unsettling performance again provided an interesting dimension to the story. There were even some situations where Smith proved herself to be relatively heroic (even if she had an ulterior motive lurking beneath the surface).
Overall, I found the second season of “Lost In Space” to be intriguing.
If you’ve watched the first season, you’ll know what sort of territory to expect. If you haven’t yet plunged into the adventures of the Robinson family, it might be time to immerse yourself in the Netflix reboot.
As Penny writes: “This is the story of discovery, but not of strange new worlds. It’s about discovering what’s in the places you thought were empty. Sometimes, it’s the invisible force of my family pulling at me, even when I can’t see them, reminding me that I’m never really alone. And sometimes, it’s about discovering horrible monsters that want to bite your face off.”
“Lost In Space” Season 2 builds on the promise shown in the first season, and sets a course for an exciting third season. I just hope we don’t have to wait as long this time around to see more of the Robinson family’s exploits on Netflix…
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