Netflix's 'Lost in Space' Season 2 uses strong female characters to power the reboot
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Remaking a classic TV show is a risky gambit. One can attract new followers but also incense fans of the original property. “ Lost in Space ,” the ’60s science fiction series known for balancing interstellar adventures with camp humor, has always been tricky to rework. A 1998 feature film was a dismal flop, and a TV pilot for the 2004 reboot “ The Robinsons: Lost In Space ” never aired. However, Netflix has managed to succeed with a “Lost In Space” revamping by expanding upon its original premise while updating its cast makeup to reflect modern times.
The key to the new series are the lead female roles . They are far more involved and proactive than in the original show, which went off the air a little over 50 years ago. Mankind is still venturing to the star Alpha Centauri to escape an overpopulated, environmentally exhausted Earth, but this time en masse rather than just the spaceship Jupiter 2 manned by the Robinson family being the first and sole exploration party.
The second season, which came to Netflix Tuesday, starts with the Robinson family now truly lost in space, far away from their fellow colonists' fleet and stranded on a planet without oxygen, without any idea where they are and unable to recharge the ship’s battery system to take off.
Right away we see how the women play critical roles far more proactive and central than in the original show. While former U.S. Navy SEAL John Robinson is still the patriarch and young son Will ever the adventurer and science whiz, the women share equal scientific and technical responsibilities, rather than the domestic chores that had been their preoccupation.
No longer is Maureen Robinson the nurturing domestic matriarch disguised as a biochemist; she is now a brilliant aerospace engineer with personal motivations beyond family caretaking. Aged slightly down, her daughters Judy and Penny Robinson (a medical doctor and mechanic, respectively) are not there simply to keep house; they are involved in the mission, with Penny occasionally showing reckless abandon when trouble arises.
And the self-centered survivalist Dr. Smith, originally a sneaky saboteur who got trapped aboard the ship before takeoff and played with comic glee by Jonathan Harris, finds a darker variation through Parker Posey’s devious and nuanced portrayal of an identity-stealing sociopath.
Upgrading the gender roles does not just serve to modernize them. Good, bad and shades of gray are represented by both genders here, making for a more multifaceted production. Moreover, the Robinsons act as a true family unit where they can all rely on one another — their greatest strength and asset.
Predictably, some cranks have griped that a show with stronger women and a more multicultural supporting cast is the result of feminism, political correctness and social justice warriors pushing a liberal agenda. But the reality is that the idealized (and white) nuclear family of 1965 no longer exists, if it ever did in its TV form.
In fairness, the first season of the original was serious sci-fi with a likable cast, and a young John Williams’ score remains iconic. The next two seasons in color varied in quality, but they are understandably endearing for many boomers and Gen Xers.
But a clan with equal gender involvement, not to mention its imperfections and conflicts, feels a lot more like a modern American family. It's all a step forward in realistic storytelling within a far-out context.
Mina Sundwall, Taylor Russell, Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, Maxwell Jenkins in Lost in Space. Eike Schroter / Netflix As Mina Sundwall, who portrays Penny, noted in an interview with Syfy Wire last year , the show doesn’t make a big deal about having a female scientist and doctor. Gender is not portrayed as being controversial. She is not stifled by any preordained boundaries.
Back in the first version, Penny was meeker. But now the middle Robinson child is a trained mechanic and not prone to always obeying her parents. She takes chances that her brother would have in the original. Like, when her parents are caught out in a deadly storm, she takes their SUV to rescue them even though she barely knows how to drive it.
“She's trying to become more independent whilst never really having fit in this family of overachievers and still being treated like a kid,” Sundwall told me at New York Comic Con this fall.
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The second season provides an opportunity to dig more into these women’s motivations and back stories, noted Molly Parker, who plays Maureen Robinson.
“One of the things that gets explored in the second season is the reason she brought the family out here. It's not because Earth is a place we don't want to be,” she told me. “She has grown up believing that it is her destiny to go into space, and so she has created a situation to fulfill that wish, even though it puts the lives of her family at risk.”
Mina Sundwall and Max Jenkins in Lost in Space. Eike Schroter / Netflix As Parker pointed out, that’s risk with a capital R: “So much of the show for me is about putting the children into situations where they almost die all the time.”
Exploring that dynamic, she explained, means her character “is becoming slightly more complicated than just the science mother bear.”
The darker tone has also been key to the success of the Netflix incarnation, and it gets ramped up as the Robinson family faces the prospect of permanent separation from the fleet at the start of Season 2. Viewers get to experience the wonder of space while also acknowledging the natural trepidation of exploring alien territory — as well as the internal group conflicts that arise when facing such fear.
For instance, there were times in the original series when a viewer would have to wonder why the Robinson Family didn’t just jettison the insufferable Dr. Smith into space. He would be immediately voted off of “Survivor: Mars.” (That said, his famed, alliterative insults towards the Robot , like “you bumbling bucket of bolts,” were funny.)
Posey’s Dr. Smith, in contrast, is just as vexing but slicker and more insidious, haunted by images of her troubled past, conning her way into space and being envious of the Robinsons’ unity.
Posey views classic theatrical villains as broken, expressive people who audiences want to both pity and fear, and this conception informs her richer portrayal. “They're aware of their destructiveness, but they're somehow positive in that they are getting what they want through other people,” she told me. “What's fun about her [Smith] is you know she’s siphoning this energy at times from other people. But she is aware of it and playing with it. That’s what makes it more family TV than just something evil.”
Similarly, the most level-headed of the Robinson kids, oldest daughter Judy (Taylor Russell), has a lot going on beneath the surface, albeit for different reasons. A trained medical engineer, she is the biracial daughter from Maureen’s first marriage. She has post-traumatic stress disorder from nearly freezing to death while trapped in ice in the very first episode, and she has a rocky relationship with her stepfather John.
“I like that, within the awkwardness of their relationship, how disconnected they are,” Russell said. “They have moments where they hug and can say, ‘I love you.’ And also be extremely complicated and have a huge barrier up. That’s like a real family, right?”
This Robinson clan may be different than the original, but their spirit remains strong. It might not have the comedic factor that endeared some people to the alpha version, but for those who appreciate the more serious sci-fi tone, it's a large step forward without disrespecting the original trajectory of the series.
After all, if science fiction is supposed to show us the possible future of progress that awaits us, doesn’t it need to be progressive?
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For some reason your post brings to mind a old song called "In The Year 2525" by Zager & Evans.
Me as well.
Get blast from the past.
Golden oldie.
Thanks for the memory.
E.
What's wrong with progress? Especially if it is reflective of modern times? Or representative of a possible future? Star Trek was quite progressive for its time and it was based on the idea of a utopian society. Is that a bad thing?
How about Planet of the Apes - progressive apes. A nuclear war could cause a REGRESSIVE society. Who knows what the future will bring - I sure don't.
I'd like to think that we'd continue to realize that women are good for more than secretarial (apologies to Yeoman Janice Rand and Lieutenant Uhura) and domestic chores.
As you pointed out, Trek was good at that, with some missteps in TOS. By TNG, nobody really raised an eyebrow at the idea of a female captain.
Let me know when we start seeing super intelligent apes.
I would say it most definitely would. Right back to the Stone Age.
No one knows what the future holds. But shows like Star Trek and the like, shows what the future could be like, if we work towards it. I don't see strong women or role equality as a bad thing for the future.
Yeoman Rand eventually broke through the Starfleet glass ceiling and became a Commander on the USS Excelsior, a state of the art ship at the time. Not a bad position to be in. Lt. Uhura was already an officer and bridge crew personnel. In TOS animated show, she actually took command of the Enterprise at one point and rescued Kirk & co.. Hardly secretarial or domestic.
Yes, but this was the 60's after all. Even so, ST did push and often break barriers.
Indeed. Or a female Chief Medical Officer, or female Starfleet Admirals. Or like how it creatively tacked then-issues like homosexuality and how society viewed them.
Planet of the Apes was a progressive series in that it challenged the power structure at the time and imagined a society run by those who were considered "lesser" than modern man. It was supposed to be an expose on the failures of man, specifically "men".
Possibly, but then again it might just wipe out society all together so we'd be back to basic survival of the fittest where society, justice and equality don't matter at all. We can imagine an unlimited number of possible outcomes from a nuclear war.
Now, if we want to imagine a more hopeful, technologically advanced society, then we'll NEED to imagine women in virtually every possible command role and not relegated to the kitchen or bedroom. Personally, that's the future I'd rather imagine, and the producers of Lost in Space likely understand that a majority feel like I do. Will there be sad lonely incels (involuntarily celibate) and misogynist pigs who want to control women and keep them in some lesser position where they never have to take an order from a woman no matter how intelligent, qualified and experienced she is? Of course, but I don't really give a fuck about those worthless bigots or what they want to watch and know that the planet would be far better off without them.
As I've said a few times already, if I were an American, I would not only VOTE for Nikki Haley to be POTUS, I'd knock on doors to campaign for her, so obviously I do believe women are quite capable of being in superior positions, but actually, for a lot of other reasons I wish Scotty would beam me back to the late 1940s.
I would have to agree with that.
Buzz, that makes no sense with the first part of your comment:
Why not tell us the other reasons, please.
Why is that? What made the late 40's so great, other than being post war?
I think that back then life was not so frantic, and it was safer, and there wasn't the concern about the problems we now have with technology, such as universal dissemination of fake news. There seemed to be more trust, like not needing to lock doors.
Every older generation looks at the ones that come after and have said the same thing, from the time of the Greeks to now. I think that life is ever changing but not complex to those who are younger or young of heart.
Well, unfortunately I'm no longer young, and a doctor here who had limited English described my heart as "tired". But I'm not dead yet.
I've never seen the new Lost In Space, and probably won't , but not because it has strong women characters. I don't watch a lot of science fiction.
It is 1000 percent proper for such a show to depict the women characters as scientists, leaders, and people of action. It's a shame that such an approach as seen as 'controversial' in 2020.
I watch the CBS series "FBI". On that show, which centers around the New York City office of the FBI, one of the featured pair of agents is a woman, who is a little older and wiser than her male partner by the way, and the head of the office, the boss of all these agents, is a woman as well. This "gender equality" doesn't distract or detract from the stories at all.
The LIS series is quite good. Netflix made it into a serious Sci fi drama. It's definitely worth a look. Not to give spoilers, but the Robot has an interesting twist, and is badass too.
We like you better that way, so keep up the good work.
A true fan would remember the episode "Turnabout Intruder". Women couldn't be captains in TOS.
I'm going by what TOS established. It was heavily implied there were no female officers ranked captain or higher, much less in command of a starship. Of course, this was due to the sexism of the 60's. Trek later retconned that to include command level female officers in Starfleet.
I believe when they used the term "needs" it was in an aspirational way. They are hoping that we grow more enlightened and shed ourselves of the inequalities that have plagued humanity since before recorded history. We've come a long way, and looking back it's easy to reason that the only way forward is along the same progressive path we've been traveling. So it makes sense for them to imagine a future where we've made some of those major gains. Films from just half a century ago have had completely different, almost unrecognizable forced roles for the female characters. Even back in 1966 they weren't ready for a female first officer when the Star Trek pilot aired, they ended up dropping Majel Barrett (Gene Roddenberry's wife) as first officer because the network didn't think a female should be in such an important role, that was a "mans" job. Women at the time were supposed to be the nurses or at best a doctor, not in a position of command. Seems pretty silly today, but that was just a little over 50 years ago.
So as for why women NEED to be shown in progressive roles, it's because they are just as good as men at command jobs and there's no reason to discriminate or be a worthless misogynist trying to keep women in their "place" as defined by ignorant neanderthal males stuck in the stone age. We NEED to show the girls of right now what women are both capable of today as well as letting them see themselves in all the jobs of tomorrow. We NEED to inspire young women, not imagine a future where they are subjugated and relegated to menial tasks by muscle bound morons.
I can’t think of a remade movie or television show that I liked more than the original.
Dear Friend Dean: Sequels better than originals are more rare than hen's teeth.
I so agree.
All best wishes this holiday season to you and yours.
Finish 2019 well.
Enjoy an even better 2020.
P&AB.
Enoch.
The first movie Sci Fi I ever saw was a black and white film on TV called, "The Shape of Things to Come".
None of it ever came to pass.
Great movie though.
E.
First one I ever saw was "Forbidden Planet". One of the greatest Sci Fi films ever made and never rebooted. But then it set the standard for much of the Sci Fi movie industry that followed.
FP is a cult classic now.
Yep, still my all time favorite Sci Fi movie.
Dear Brother Ed-NavDoc: So agree about Forbidden Planet.
Mrs. E. and I plan to vacation in Krell Land this spring.
Waiting on the weather to turn.
Booked a flight on Morbius Air.
Robbie is chief pilot.
Who can pass up a deal like that.
P&AB.
Enoch.
Mine too. It gave us Robbie the robot.
Toby Stephens, you say? I'll have to check it out.
Do people really enjoy being manipulated so blatantly? It's propaganda first and identity politics first, story 9 or 10th, if it matters at all.
That seems to be that standard for critical success in Hollywood, making sure the right message (propaganda) hits the viewer over the head, repeatedly. So often, women and minorities aren't actually developed human characters, instead are representatives of the the entire race/sex, and must always behave in accord with the wokest of woke. .
Sean,
I picked this piece since I thought it was an interesting take on a TV show and yes it was meant to induce conversation. But do you actually believe that all women are treated as equals to men? Ask any of the Fox women if they felt that way, when they were fired or on their knees in Ailes' office.
But do you actually believe that all women are treated as equals to men? Ask any of the
You are making my point for me, conflating characters in a fictional television show with "All Women." When the show runners' agenda is dominated by creating idealized role models rather than actual three dimensional characters, the product suffers and to me, is unwatchable. The moralizing is too over the top for for me.
Sean,
I don't understand how you come to your conclusion from what I said? The fact is that women are not treated the same as men, even now. Hence my examples.
And while I agree that real life examples are always better for role models, we are affected by what we see, real or not. This has been proved in psychology. Show children violent acts, and they react violently. The same thing goes with positive role models.
I doubt "Lost in Space" is anything more than sci-fi that happens to have strong women in it. I doubt that it is moralizing. This is a commentary.. an opinion piece, meant to generate discussion. Your annoyance is an interesting reaction to it.
Excellent observation. It's clear as day for those not so easily manipulated. Part of the main reason I can't stomach new TV or movies. It all has such a blatant propaganda message it makes me sick that other people can't see it. They don't want to.
I think it's interesting that you both watch a show and feel manipulated. I can get that from late night comedians, but most shows are just there for entertainment. When I watch "The Blacklist", do you think I want to be part of organized crime?
It's everywhere Perrie. For example, the new Predator reboot they did. Aside from the movie just being terrible in general, there were woke messages throughout the whole thing that made it a comedy more than anything. I mean the predators "evolve" because of climate change. Really? Climate change? They just had to throw that in there. That is just the most obvious, it would take me a while to expose the liberal propaganda throughout the whole movie but that is just a sample of what I'm talking about. It would take effort to come up with a cool reason they would evolve, so let's just plug a political talking point and win some SJW points instead of putting effort into it. And here all I want to do is watch Predators hunt the human race for sport.....
OK granted that introducing climate change into that movie is a bit silly. But I am an avid movie goer and I don't see too much like that in the story telling.
I think any piece of art is going to have a message within - call it "propaganda" if you like.
Sometimes that message is obvious because it's stated overtly or the content breaks with accepted norms. That can lead the audience to notice the message more readily.
But if art instead reinforces those norms, that's kind of a statement, too. "Leave it to Beaver" or "Father Knows Best" made statements like that with every episode.
An excellent observation Tacos. I am impressed.
Ok I agree with that. Things that are norms are usually that way because they have proven their worth. I have yet to see the benefit of progressive society. Sure some people can do more things than they could before, but is society really better for it? I'm not so sure. I would rather people be seeing examples of things that are tried and true, and not some liberals unrealistic pipe dream
We watched the first season. It's a pretty good show. Looking forward to season 2, but it only hit yesterday and we've been a little busy with Christmas movies and whatnot.
Same with me and the hubby. I am finishing off season 4 of "Outlander" and then getting on with "Lost in Space", before starting "The Expanse" and "Piccard".
Every TV show or movie that tries this fails horribly. Ghostbusters and Oceans 8 come to mind. I have completely stopped watching The Walking Dead because the female characters are so insufferable now it's not even enjoyable to watch. Fact is male characters naturally have more charisma and are harder to emulate by women who don't naturally act that way.
I also take offense to the idea that powerful women are "progress". I would need to see supporting evidence that women in positions of power have made society better for everyone, not just women. BTW, women are under the most stress they have ever been in according to recent studies. Not sure if more power is good for all women.
https://womensagenda.com.au/leadership/advice/why-working-women-are-more-stressed-than-ever/
Wow, that is quite the mysogynistic post.
Continuing the pattern.
There are those on social media who are misogynistic, and there are those who are racist, claiming in a barely veiled way that both blacks and women are inferior. The two somewhat go together.
All the rest of us can do is oppose it.
I'm not saying women don't have their own charisma. The strong female characters from Alien and Terminator come to mind. But that was because they were believable. They were portrayed as more badass, than beautiful. Current movies and shows take it too far and have these 90 pound, fragile looking women in these roles that were formally played by very masculine men. It's just not believable to people who aren't hardcore progressives.
I think most people would agree with that. But that is not what this is about.
Whatever happened to just watching a TV show or movie just for enjoyment without having to dissect it for possible or assumed political correctness?
Ed,
When I watch my movies or TV shows all I am watching them for is entertainment. I posted this, since I thought it would make for good discussion... and look it did, LOL.
I personally don't find shallow characters and predictably storylines to be entertaining.
Yep.
Well, not everybody is cut out to be a critic.
It's called change son.
Why would women with 'charisma' offend you so much?
Some fear change. It's not a good look.
I caught that too and found it a bit shocking. Charisma is found in both males and females. Not sure he thinks this is just a male trait.
You are not getting better as we go on. Your understanding of women is pathetic and your anti-female biases are so overt and obvious. (*removed by me to avoid censure*) Your misogynistic attitude is so repellent and disgusting and belongs in the last century - the beginning of it. No need to defend women's abilities to you, you aren't worth it;.
lol. The truth hurts.
Female scientists, doctors, and mechanics are "contrived"? Why would you think that?
Then watch the original "Lost in Space". I'm sure it never seemed contrived.
Or maybe updating sci-fi to line up with social realities and better science isn't really "contrived", but doesn't suit the tastes of some.
What original story line or character did "Star Wars" replace?
I've watched all of Star Wars except "The Rise of Skywalker". No characters were replaced. No story lines were scrapped. The prequels and sequels just weren't as good as the original trilogy (IMO). TBH, I thought it started going downhill in ROTJ, with the too-cutesy Ewoks. Originally, they were to have been Wookies. That would have been better, if Chewbacca hadn't already been shown as tech-savvy.
I don't know that the books are really canon, but I've read a few. Timothy Zahn and Kevin J. Anderson, and a few others I can't recall. But as they all tell their own tales, some of which don't mesh with each other, the newer movies are at liberty to fo their own thing, for better or worse.
You know now that I am watching it, I don't see what this article is talking about. It's still a story about a boy, his robot and Dr. Smith.