User Reviews

This time, the eccentric visitor to the planet is Zalto (Al Lewis), a purple-robed, cone-hatted wizard with a malevolent-looking ventriloquist dummy and a carnival-like secret lair. In keeping with the show's descent into colourful camp, the episode is 'Smith-centered', doesn't make much sense and is played for strictly laughs (at least from the kids), including slap-shtick antics accompanied by slide-whistle chirps. Al Lewis was always an amusing character actor (perhaps best known as Grandpa on the 'The Munsters' (1964) and Schnauser on 'Car 54, Where are You?' (1961), but the material he's given in this episode is pretty rudimentary. Its unfathomable why, after numerous run-ins with strange entities appearing spontaneously on the planet, the elder Robinsons and Don are still hesitate to accept Will's or Smith's claims to having had some strange close encounter. By this point, you either find 'Lost in Space' entertainingly goofy (and this episode is that) or have given up on the series altogether. Add baseball equipment, including umpire gear, to the Jupitar 2's odd assortment of interplanetary colonialist cargo.

Irwin Allen and writers proceeding on propensity at fantasy-like storyline, bringing this time a clumsy Wizard Zalto embodies perfectly by the grandpa Al Lewis escorted by a dummy ventriloquist, focusing once more on power trio Dr. Smith, Will Robinson and the old clunker the Robot in this funny episode.

Zalto starting appears just to Dr Smith, all others around didn't see nothing, Will, Penny and the Robot figure out that Smith has some hallucination, instead Maj. Don West states that him need a hard work to feel better, to elude Zalto Dr. Smith starts wearing sunglasses has been mocked by Jupiter II's crew, thus Smith has a sudden nerve to looking for Zalto at its cave to make a deal, actually Zalto offers to Dr. Smith a possible journey through his own spacecraft in aiming for to make a merchandise of his upcoming magical tour, then enters the fallacious Smith already wondering back on the Earth.

All settled then Dr. Smith with dismay reports his departure toward the Earth to they mates, even the Robot starts crying among Will and Penny, fully packet Smith goes to the cave to take off, although Will has an operation manual that should be arguably to Smith during his long journey, taking it to his pal in hands inside the spacecraft, due the rush both are sent to outer space, be that as it may Zalto has other plans to the passengers.

Don't be ashamed to find it interesting, many reviewers put it down, somehow they have forget that long series is quite difficult to fill out all episodes with the early patten, already depleted, lack of news insights and so on, it remains still amusing whatever it comes.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2023 / Source: DVD / How many: 1 / Rating: 7.

Funnyman Al Lewis, always memorable for his stints on "Car 54" and "The Munsters", plays a nutsy and egotistical magician, with lousy ventiloquist's dummy in tow, in this rather mindless segment.

Though Lewis gets to pull faces and basically ham it up, Dr. Smith is the central character here, dominating the show as he often does, with Mumy and Cartwright as his young straight men/women. Storyline is dumbed down even more than usual, making this a difficult sit-through for an adult. Basically the silliness perpetrated by Lewis is meant as a diversion for the youngest viewers of the show, but looking back at my own childhood and tv watching habits I would suggest that a good old story about a ventriloquist and his dummy, especially a darker one (classics like "Devil Doll" come to mind) are far preferable, as long as the kid is old enough to not be prone to nightmares.

A better episode compared to its predecessors but it is far from brilliant. Al Lewis guest stars as a magician who also has a ventriloquist type dummy and his character adds to the episode. He almost plays it in the same way as he played Grandpa in the Munsters.

Jonathan Harris and Al Lewis together. As a New Yorker, it's interesting to me that these actors were from, respectively, the Bronx and Brooklyn. As a kid, I considered Lewis' role here to be a variation on his Munsters character. He was a magician, instead of a vampire. The episode, while arguably silly, contains some touching moments between Will, Dr Smith and the Robot. Will was always able to see something positive in Smith, where nobody else could. The friendship between these two characters had much to do with the show's overall appeal. Interestingly, Billy Mumy had previously appeared on an episode of the Munsters.

As the series progressed, LOST IN SPACE ventured from the dramatic to utterly campy comedy. Stuffy critics dismissed it while all of us kids back in the day loved it, and in color! The writers may have also taken a few lessons from tv's BATMAN as the series, you have to admit, had some wildly eccentric bad guys, not to mention Dr. Smith! Here, the great Al Lewis (grampa on THE MUNSTERS) makes a memorable special appearance as a bumbling magician who has his own space ship --which Dr. Smith wishes to steal! This is one fun episode and the teaming of Jonathan Harris and Al Lewis is priceless. You can tell they had a blast working together and there were probably a lot of out takes as they were goofing around. Dr. Smith dressed in a black and red robe, complete with pointed hat, is one for the books and Lewis' talking dummy is real, real camp. A gotsta' see. SEASON 2 1967.