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"The Mechanical Men"

Mechanical men

LiS episode
2x28 / 57th of 83 aired
Production #
9523
First aired
Watch online now
Written by
Directed by
Seymour Robbie
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Last week, as you recall, we left Dr. Smith experimenting with the invention of a new space fuel, unaware that an army of tiny mechanical monsters was even then preparing to invade their lonely world...

Summary[]

Dr. Smith has been banished from the campsite because an experiment that he was conducting with liquid deutronium was a messy failure. Out in the wilderness he awakens from one of his usual naps and discovers that he has been kidnapped by an army of miniature mechanical men. These miniature mechanical men are from the planet Industro, and they resemble the Robinson's Robot.

The Robot Army launches several attacks against the Robinson party. Eventually they get the Robinson's Robot to join them as their leader. The Robot does not have the evil personality necessary for the job, so the little robots swap Dr. Smith's personality with that of the Robot.

The Robot Army, led by Robot/Smith, try to take the Jupiter 2 away from the Robinsons so they can use it to transport their new full-sized leader to another planet. The Robinson party refuses to cooperate, and a battle between the male members of the Robinson party and the robot army results. One of the effects of this battle is to reverse the personality switch between the Robot and Dr. Smith, so that they are back to normal. The robot army flees when they see that their plan has failed.

Background Information[]

  • The tiny mechanical men are toy LIS robots put out by Remco at the time. These were then repainted to match the colors of the full size robot.
  • As with most 2nd season LIS efforts, this one strains credibility almost to the breaking point in that regardless of how powerful the tiny robots are made to appear (and the worst they do is blow up a tree) the Robinsons could probably run them all over with the Chariot and repel the invasion that way.
  • The chemical lab of the tiny robots is used again as Dr. Smth's wine-making equipment in "The Prisoners of Space."
  • When the Robinson family is preparing to vacate the ship under orders from the Mechanical Men, a door to a storage room is open with laser rifles displayed to the right of the elevator. In Season 3, the Space Pod will be in that place.

Links and references[]

Cast[]

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