Lost in Space (Season 2)
The second season was made available by Netflix on December 24th, which fits since the first episode takes place on Christmas. I've now finished marathoning - thankfully, it's as short as the first - , and enjoyed it very much, with some nitpicks. Unspoilery impression: the show continues to deliver on the intense family dynamics, trying out new combinations as well as the earlier ones, there is thankfully no reset button - seriously, few things annoy me as much as when once we've seen a couple go through an arc of estrangement and reconciliation this button is pressed, and they're facing the same problems all over again, so yay for this not happening! -, the survival drama continues to be suspenseful, and the overall look keeps being gorgeous.
My nitpicks are all spoilery, so I won't mention them above cut. They didn't stop me from continuing to love the show, though, and I hope now for season 3. Go Robinsons go!
My two nitpicks essentially are: 1) My favourite Maureen has less to do than in season one, and b) I'm not sure I buy Dr. Smith's arc. Now, it's not like Maureen gets sidelined, far from it, she still rocks at science and even gets to lead a mutiny at one point, plus she does get a nasty and continuity-pleasing shock when it turns out the price she paid for getting Will on the Resolute back in the day is now endangering everyone. (This ties to s2 pointing out that one of the Robinson virtues - coming through for your family (not just blood family, chosen family as well) no matter what the threat - can also mean damage to other people and thus not be a good thing at all.) However, in s1 her development was a central emotional focus, and in s2, this central focus has shifted to the kids, rather than be in addition to the kids. Also, she and Smith have scenes only at the start and the end of the season, and here I was hoping they'd be proper arch enemies forced to work together.
Which brings me to my other nitpick. Now, I'm not complaining about the direction of Smith's arc per se. If you keep an antagonist like Dr. Smith static, you make everyone else look like idiots for not getting terminally rid of them, plus it makes for a less interesting character. But while in theory Smith's storyline was basically becoming the mask - i.e. trying to divide the Robinsons by pretending to bond with individual members in order to survive, escape and win, she ends up actually caring about them enough to at last stop running and being ready to risk her life for non-selfish reasons, plus she gets haunted by one of the deaths her earlier selfishness cost - the pacing felt wrong.
All this being said: s2, like I said, was still very pleasing to me, and kept surprising me in good ways. For example, when Penny early on vented her middle child insecurities (she's not into science the way Maureen and Will are, and Johns's closest bond is with Judy), and Smith saw that and started to use it, I wasn sure we'd get a typical "bad parent figure competing with good parent figure" scenario, but no. Not least because Penny actually remembers season 1. She is not immune to being impressed by Smith's ability to get into people's heads, but she's actually aware there's no reason to trust her, and her issues with Maureen are separate for this and dealt with between Penny and Maureen, not by her going for Smith as an alternate parent for a while.
We also get more on Judy and John. S1 had already established that while Judy isn't John's biological daughter, she's the child who, no least because she saw the most of him pre estrangement from Maureen, he's closest to, and s2 builds on that, both via flashbacks showing the two building their father-daughter relationship through her childhood and youth and in the present when Judy has become an adult who knows parents can be flawed but that doesn't make them less worthy of love. Judy coming into her own as an adult and relating to John (and Maureen) as an adult as her main arc was also something that pleasantly surprised me, because I had assumed she'd be given the romance of the season, building on s1's introducing some UST between her and Don West. But no. Judy and Don don't share that many scenes at all, and no romantic ones; instead, she gets this, preparing for the big cliffhanger.
If you think about it, it makes sense since the show's central love story is A Boy and His Robot. And continues to be so. Again, I was very pleasantly surprised we didn't get reset buttons or a rerun from s1 in terms of what the show was doing with Will and the Robot. Instead, it was about mutual growing up - with the Robot no longer prioritizing Will's wishes and safety above everything and showing his own agenda and wishes being presented as a good thing, as friendship, to quote the show, can't be a one road street - and the fact that Will's consistent kindness and ability to treat the aliens as people, not machines, eventually resulted in Scarecrow reciprocating as well did fit the show's essential optimism in this regard.
About the human race, too. Even ruthless antagonists like Hastings don't just claim to be acting for the greater good, they do, if called upon, prove they're willing to put their money where their mouth is. And experimenting Doctor Adler can rediscover his inner child of wonder and sacrifice his life for an alien instead of getting a crazy horror scientist arc.
All of which is something that didn't feel sappy to me, it felt like something I wanted to see. Especially in these times. That faith that if you don't give up and keep trying, most people will prove they can be their better selves, instead of their worst, and that we can work together instead of destroying each other.
Even if we need to get lost in space in order to do so.
My nitpicks are all spoilery, so I won't mention them above cut. They didn't stop me from continuing to love the show, though, and I hope now for season 3. Go Robinsons go!
My two nitpicks essentially are: 1) My favourite Maureen has less to do than in season one, and b) I'm not sure I buy Dr. Smith's arc. Now, it's not like Maureen gets sidelined, far from it, she still rocks at science and even gets to lead a mutiny at one point, plus she does get a nasty and continuity-pleasing shock when it turns out the price she paid for getting Will on the Resolute back in the day is now endangering everyone. (This ties to s2 pointing out that one of the Robinson virtues - coming through for your family (not just blood family, chosen family as well) no matter what the threat - can also mean damage to other people and thus not be a good thing at all.) However, in s1 her development was a central emotional focus, and in s2, this central focus has shifted to the kids, rather than be in addition to the kids. Also, she and Smith have scenes only at the start and the end of the season, and here I was hoping they'd be proper arch enemies forced to work together.
Which brings me to my other nitpick. Now, I'm not complaining about the direction of Smith's arc per se. If you keep an antagonist like Dr. Smith static, you make everyone else look like idiots for not getting terminally rid of them, plus it makes for a less interesting character. But while in theory Smith's storyline was basically becoming the mask - i.e. trying to divide the Robinsons by pretending to bond with individual members in order to survive, escape and win, she ends up actually caring about them enough to at last stop running and being ready to risk her life for non-selfish reasons, plus she gets haunted by one of the deaths her earlier selfishness cost - the pacing felt wrong.
All this being said: s2, like I said, was still very pleasing to me, and kept surprising me in good ways. For example, when Penny early on vented her middle child insecurities (she's not into science the way Maureen and Will are, and Johns's closest bond is with Judy), and Smith saw that and started to use it, I wasn sure we'd get a typical "bad parent figure competing with good parent figure" scenario, but no. Not least because Penny actually remembers season 1. She is not immune to being impressed by Smith's ability to get into people's heads, but she's actually aware there's no reason to trust her, and her issues with Maureen are separate for this and dealt with between Penny and Maureen, not by her going for Smith as an alternate parent for a while.
We also get more on Judy and John. S1 had already established that while Judy isn't John's biological daughter, she's the child who, no least because she saw the most of him pre estrangement from Maureen, he's closest to, and s2 builds on that, both via flashbacks showing the two building their father-daughter relationship through her childhood and youth and in the present when Judy has become an adult who knows parents can be flawed but that doesn't make them less worthy of love. Judy coming into her own as an adult and relating to John (and Maureen) as an adult as her main arc was also something that pleasantly surprised me, because I had assumed she'd be given the romance of the season, building on s1's introducing some UST between her and Don West. But no. Judy and Don don't share that many scenes at all, and no romantic ones; instead, she gets this, preparing for the big cliffhanger.
If you think about it, it makes sense since the show's central love story is A Boy and His Robot. And continues to be so. Again, I was very pleasantly surprised we didn't get reset buttons or a rerun from s1 in terms of what the show was doing with Will and the Robot. Instead, it was about mutual growing up - with the Robot no longer prioritizing Will's wishes and safety above everything and showing his own agenda and wishes being presented as a good thing, as friendship, to quote the show, can't be a one road street - and the fact that Will's consistent kindness and ability to treat the aliens as people, not machines, eventually resulted in Scarecrow reciprocating as well did fit the show's essential optimism in this regard.
About the human race, too. Even ruthless antagonists like Hastings don't just claim to be acting for the greater good, they do, if called upon, prove they're willing to put their money where their mouth is. And experimenting Doctor Adler can rediscover his inner child of wonder and sacrifice his life for an alien instead of getting a crazy horror scientist arc.
All of which is something that didn't feel sappy to me, it felt like something I wanted to see. Especially in these times. That faith that if you don't give up and keep trying, most people will prove they can be their better selves, instead of their worst, and that we can work together instead of destroying each other.
Even if we need to get lost in space in order to do so.