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"Wild Adventure"
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LiS episode
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2x02 / 31st of 83 aired
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Production #
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9502
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First aired
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Watch online now
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Written by
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William Read Woodfield, Allan Balter
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Directed by
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Last week, as you recall, we left the Jupiter 2 and our space pioneers contentedly streaking through the heavens - unaware that a giant space mass was, even now, hurtling out of the blackness, directly towards them...
Summary[]
Having left the doomed planet Priplanis just in time to escape its destruction due to Mr. Nerim's careless use of explosives, at an Alpha Control space barge the Robinsons find a species of space-dwelling humanoids who live off deutronium fuel, one of whom casts a seductive spell on Dr. Smith.
Background Information[]
- The Alpha Control F-12 fuel barge and the landing sequence would later be reused in The Haunted Lighthouse - although the vessel would be a manned 'Lighthouse ship' of a different role. The vessels were apparently designed as interstellar 'filling stations' for future colonization missions (in the same way that the 'Lighthouse ships' were designed as 'weather/mapping information stations'). Oddly, the station contains only fuel and nothing else in terms of spare parts or supplies or even a transceiver to communicate back to Earth. It is presumed that Alpha Control simply shot these stations out into space without ever wanting to keep track of them.
- This is the first time the Jupiter 2 has been in direct contact with Alpha Control since The Reluctant Stowaway. John Robinson, according to The Alpha Control Reference Manual, depositied a copy of the ship's log on the fuel barge which was found and detailed by an Alpha Control ship, and some more of the circumstances causing the loss of the ship became clear.
- The following episode produces some contradictions with the ending of this one, namely in the amount of fuel the Jupiter 2 has on board and how they were able to reach the following automated planet but not able to get to Earth (due to lack of fuel for maneuvering). If they did not have enough fuel for a course change, it seems impossible they could land and take off in the following episode The Ghost Planet.
- The mysterious green girl, unnamed in this episode, returns in The Girl from the Green Dimension, where we learn she is called Athena. Her catchphrase is the famous 'Handsome, pretty, handsome, Dr. Smith!'
- There is some discrepancy about when exactly this episode is set (the time having been established midway through the first series as 1998). The Alpha Control announcer mentions that the ship was lost over a year ago. This makes the time as the end of 1998, 1999, or early 2000, but the vaugeness of time references in the first series (it is not clear whether Return from Outer Space shows Christmas/New year 1997/8 or Christmas/New year 1998-9), make time continuity sketchy at best.
- There are animals capable of surviving in cold and vacuum, at least for a limited period. Tardigrades, a primitive form of anthropod, exist here on Earth and have survived the vacuum of low Earth orbit with no bad effects. A higher order, more complex animal like a human, especially one lacking an exoskeleton, would not last more than a few seconds under the conditions of interstellar space.
- We discover another species in the LiS Universe that eats deutronium fuel, another being the eponymous flora in "Attack of the Monster Plants."
- When discussing the lower-than-expected level of fuel in the barge, Prof. Robinson states that if there had been a leak, the fuel would still be moving past the barge. In fact, given that the fuel has been established to be a liquid, then at the low pressure of space it would almost certainly volatilize upon its escape due to the vacuum and blow out and away from the barge. Newton's laws of motion would then require the barge to move in the opposite direction, slowly but surely pushing it off-station, possibly by tens of thousands of miles even at a modest velocity of 1 ft/sec. The barge also must be heated or incredibly well insulated in order to keep the contents from freezing. Perhaps the first reason is the explanation why Athena's people hang around it - just to keep warm!
- Although getting scale and size right was never a strong point of the series, one can estimate the amount of fuel on the barge from its size relative to that of the Jupiter 2 which appears to be about 60–70 feet in diameter and perhaps 30 feet high at most. The barge has a "life saver" shape perhaps twice as high as the Jupiter with a diameter that's also about twice that of the Robinson's ship. A crude but reasonable upper limit guess for the volume of the barge would be 200,000 cubic feet or enough volume to hold over a million gallons. Since it's a quarter low that means Athena's people must have consumed about 250,000 gallons of it.
- Near the end of the episode when the family rushes to the upper deck to see Athena and Dr. Smith outside the ship, Bob May's feet can be seen as the robot moves past the astrogator.
Links and references[]
Starring[]
Co-starring[]
- Mark Goddard as Don West
- Marta Kristen as Judy Robinson
- Bill Mumy as Will Robinson
- Angela Cartwright as Penny Robinson
Special guest star[]
- Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith
Guest star[]
- Vitina Marcus as Athena (credited as "Lorelei")
Uncredited co-stars (alphabetical)[]
- Bob May as The Robot
- Dick Tufeld as The Robot (voice)
References[]
Alpha Centauri; astrometer; cosmic dust; Earth; star