The Condemned of Space

Writer Peter Packer

Director Nathan Juran, guest star Marcel Hillaire

The beginning of the third season finds the Robinsons having to quickly leave the planet they are on, which is a similar plot to the beginning of the second season. Once in space, the robot is swept overboard and has to be rescued. Then the Robinsons find a prison ship filled with cryogenically preserved prisoners. The prisoners have been interred past their normal sentences due to a malfunctioning timepiece on the prison ship. Professor Robinson repairs the timepiece and frees the prisoners. Robby the Robot makes another appearance, threatening Professor Robinson and Major West.

One of my favorite episodes from the series and a great way to kick off season three. New opening theme, cast credits and outfits, accompany this fantastic hour of tv. Lots of great action as Professor Robinson must go out of the J2 which is in flight and save the Robot that has been accidentally cast adrift via Dr Smith. Robby the Robot is back again after a long absence and is a prison guard here. As far as bloopers go, when Will and Smith look into one of the prisoner chambers through the window watch as one of the prisoners clearly moves his arm. Guess he was kinda cold in there yikes! Despite a few moments of nonsense The Condemned Of Space is a great way to start year three off.

Ray Dutczak
December 25, 2006.

Robert says : On my 1-10 scale, "Condemned of Space" is about a 7... too good to
be in the "average" range of 5-6, but not good enough for
the "excellent" or elite scores of 8+.

Lots of action to kick things off and nice use of classic LIS
incidental music, mainly from "Reluctant Stowaway" and "My Friend,
Mister Nobody", though there is also some music from "The Derelict"
and "Blast Off Into Space" as well... all of it good stuff. I also
like seeing the silver flight suits, along with the nice, long hair
of Judy and Penny! Further, I enjoyed the J2's lift-off and John
Robinson's space walk. I also liked the new theme song and live
action credit sequence, along with the "next week on Lost in Space"
teasers at the end. Much more compact and exciting when compared to
the season two teasers, though I loved them in season one.

The main plot of the story is pretty good, too, although this story
is well-saturated with LIS head-scratchers (and another bout with
a "hot" comet). For instance, the "space void"... what was it? It
looked like regular space to me. And the nova just looked like the
comet... a nova is an explosion of a dying star. Additionally, the
prison ship's timing mechanism was easy to repair... once it started
running again, the automated voice said that the term of
imprisonment was ended. Did the clock stop working 10 seconds before
the sentences were supposed to end? Finally, look at the J2 campsite
at the very beginning of the episode... there isn't any sand! It's
all hard (soundstage) floor! (Also, look when they show the lower
deck during the J2's lift-off and escape from the planet... Marta
Kristen must not have been available for that scene, because all we
see are the silver boots of the acceleration couch that belongs to
Judy, presumably being worn by a stand-in.)

None of the above is enough to bump this episode down, though they
are enough (for me) to keep it from going higher into so-called
excellent/elite status.
Robert Herzog

Our friend Kevin Burns has dipped deep into the archives and unearthed rare shots of the robot being rescued by John Robinson from deep space in the beginning of "The Condemned of Space."  Shots include 4 shots of Guy Williams suiting up, a test run of the spacewalk effect (Guy isn't wearing a helmet) and 3 shots of the robot floating helplessly outside the J2.

Other images from this same photo shoot were used in the July 22 1967 TV Guide article How Do You Make A Robot Fly?

With many thanks to Robert and Kevin for their contributions!