User Reviews

Well, this pilot may have been unaired, but there was certainly enough excitement in this action-packed episode to make four really good season 1 episodes from it. Most of the special effects sequences and stunts were later put to good use in the series proper. In fact most of the footage from this episode was eventually aired, but re-edited, spilt up and with some noticeable changes made in places.

It's interesting to note some of the differences between this pilot and the actual aired series, most famously the absence of Dr Smith and the Robot. This really just highlights how much those two characters were needed in order to get the balance just right.

Interestingly, Don West is a scientist in this one rather than a military man, again you'd have to agree that changing him into a military officer did help to get the balance right in making the dynamic between the characters more interesting.

Overall though, its a great introduction to the series and very ambitious to have interstellar flight, giants, alien creatures, high sea drama, a lost underground city and aliens, all in one episode. Of course it would become something even better even than this thanks to the changes made in time for series one which allowed for greater character development.

This first unaired pilot was cleared doomed to failure, after that they introduced Doctor Smith and the Robot who with Will becomes a power trio that brings the lights to the entire series, without them surely will be a flop, watching carefully this first pilot episode stays clear that the writers will be a short range of possibilities to get on it in the whole expected project, including the sponsors which were the key to cover the high cost this advance and bold Irwin Allen's challenge untill that period of time!!

Resume:

First watch: 1996 / How many: 3 / Source: VHS-DVD / Rating: 7

No Place to Hide was not aired during the initial broadcast run, although most of the footage was used in the initial five episodes (1,4 and 5).

It moves very fast and easily had enough of a variety of action to be incorporated into several very different episodes. It is essentailly very serious with just a little humour provided by Prof Robinson, no less (directed at Debbie The Bloop a couple of times)!

Dr. Smith and The Robot are not in this. Will and Penny seem very young, as this was made in January 1965. A good six months before the other footage for the early episodes began.

Also, very interesting to note is the intro and theme music is nothing like the series. Same for the closing.

I am not giving "No Place to Hide" a numerical score for a couple reasons. First, I never watched "Lost in Space" so I really cannot compare this pilot episode to later ones. Second, it isn't designed like a normal episode and the first 1/3 is more a recap of the plot for the CBS execs who were watching this to decide whether or not to give the series the green light.

This pilot is like most pilots....a bit different from the series that followed. Dr. Smith and the Robot are not in the show at all....and this would be hard to explain to the viewers how they suddenly appeared on the ship! But, since the pilot wasn't aired until decades later, this wasn't an issue! The theme song is also very different....mostly because the music wouldn't be written for it unless the show was approved.

Once the explanation of the mission and the characters in the show was given, the ship takes off and is knocked off course by asteroids. The ship lands on a new planet and the place turns out to suck for two reasons: it's really cold (and getting colder) and there are giant humanoid monsters on the planet. The second problem is dealt with in a less than peaceful manner, as young Will Robinson blasts one of them to death! So much for exploring new worlds and making new friends!! There also is a sequence involving Dr. Robinson flying about with a jet pack (a very popular 1960s idea) to look for his daughter who got herself lost. He seems to fly about for a very long time...too bad real jet packs only gave the pilot a few seconds of air time due to fuel consumption.

Overall, mildly interesting...but probably a pilot best seen by lovers of the series instead of grouchy old guys like me. Mildly entertaining and not without merit. However, allowing Mumy to sing "Greensleaves" was a mistake in hindsight. While a very talented child and great actor in shows such as "Babylon 5", his singing is exactly what you'd expect from a small boy....and that is NOT particularly entertaining!

As a bonus feature on the blu-ray for the first season of the Netflix Lost in Space series, there is a colorized version of this, the unaired pilot of the classic Lost in Space! It looks BEAUTIFUL in color! And it's amazing how good this show still looks since its over 55 years old. This unaired pilot was split up to make the first few episodes of the series, so all together its really action packed and feels like an old movie. But it's missing a lot of the character that the series had and can be a bit stressful to watch! The characters aren't developed much and it has a frantic feeling and is darker than the show but its still interesting to watch to see where it all began!

In the year 2001, the Robinson family (John, Maureen and their children Judy, Penny and Will) and geologist Don West leave Earth in the discoid starship Gemini 12 for a 97-year journey to Alpha Centauri. When the ship is damaged in a meteor swarm, the crew is forced to crash-land on a mysterious planet where they have to battle the elements (and a race of cyclopean giants) if they are to survive. They are..."Lost in Space". This is the much commented on pilot for the sometimes scorned but usually fondly remembered space-adventure series that ran for three seasons from 1965 to 1968 (83 episodes). The pilot is closer to its inspiration (The Swiss Family Robinson) than is the series, with the focus being on the family's struggle to adapt to the harsh world on which they are 'cast away 'but the most obvious difference is the absence of 'Doctor Smith' and 'the Robot', who ultimately became the 'main attractions' as the series devolved into a 'camp', kid-targeted comic-adventure series. Much of the footage was recycled in the first five episodes of the series (which required some contrived plot elements to explain the absence of Smith and The Robot in the older scenes). For the era and budget, the special effects are pretty good (the one-eyed 'giants' not withstanding) and are much more 'serious sci-fi' than the goofy, garish contraptions that started to appear (usually in a puff of colourful smoke) towards the end of the show's run. I doubt that actor Guy Williams, last seen as the family patriarch kneeling in the alien sand and praying for his family's survival, envisioned that in just three years, he would be wearing a pastel-coloured velour outfit and talking to a person wearing a giant carrot costume (Williams' disappointment with the series' metamorphosis into the comic 'Will-Smith-Robot hour' is well known). More than five decades have passed since this pilot was made, but it is fun to speculate how the show would have fared if it had maintained a 'serious' hard-science tone (especially as 'Star Trek', its main competition, debuted less than a year later). A must-see for frenemies of the show (or anyone interested in TV sci-fi in general).

To be accurate, this "unaired" pilot contains scenes which also appeared in two Season 1 episodes. The episodes were The Reluctant Stowaway and There Were Giants in the Earth. This pilot establishes how mediocre the show would have been without Dr Smith and the Robot. It's interesting how that silly "bloop" creature was in the pilot, but not Smith or the Robot. There is one scene in the pilot which deserves proper credit. Will Robinson is chasing an ostrich-like creature, and yells: "Come back here when I say 'come back here.'" Only Billy Mumy could have made that scene work.

And so it begins. Man ventures out into the galaxy, spreading death and destruction. Kills the first intelligent species they come into contact with, a magnificent and misunderstood giant. They didn't even try to communicate with it peacefully. They just lit its foot on fire and then killed it with a laser. And while the men are out exploring and killing things, the women and children are back at base camp doing chores. But anyway, this pilot episode was a product of its time, and its an interesting time capsule on society in the 60's. The problem is, the science fiction writers spent so much time imagining the future of space travel and technology but kept every societal norm frozen in the 1960's. It's not like societal norms hadn't changed between the 1920's to the 1960's, so why couldn't they foresee changes and imagined a different society between the 1950's and the 2000's (when this show takes place). This is what Star Trek was able to achieve, and to boldly show their audience.

What? A measly 8000 miles per second? That's the mean velocity 100 years to Alpha Centauri comes out to. But actually, that's not an outrageous estimate compared to what science fiction usually dupes an audience with. LiS, of course, did so also. In the pilot that was actually shown as episode #1, wasn't that 100 years (98 years suspended animation) changed to 5 years?-- meaning travel very near the speed of light? And in this pilot, there was nothing about a "hyper-drive" that would fling them to anywhere in universe. Which means that the planet they land on must be in this solar system-- an earth-like planet not known before. As unlikely as that is, I think it's still more likely than the near-light and hyper-drive junk that sci-fi so thrives on. However, if there would be such a planet in our solar system, obviously in the habitable zone, there is no it could be anywhere other than directly opposite the sun to us-- our real twin with an orbit right on our own elliptical pattern. Considering the extreme cold in this pilot, it should not be such, but should be a planet with a more elongated orbit. But with that, there is no way we could not see it. But anyway, it's all summed up by saying this pilot is definitely closer to something quasi-scientific than the later pilot and the series. If anyone thinks ratings don't follow logic, I submit this as exhibit A.