Lost In Space “The New Guy”

Sure, there’s a lot of talk about time heists, but the space heist can also be pretty cool when done right.

If anything, this particular episode of Lost in Space comes down to trust.  Who can trust whom to do what and the like.  Smith isn’t the slightest bit trustworthy, but she’s smart enough to gaslight her way to general usefulness.  Sort of.  Robot is trustworthy, at least he is now.  Is Scarecrow?

That is a genuinely good question because John, Don, and Maureen’s plan to steal an engine from the other robots basically comes down to whether or not Scarecrow can be trusted enough to do his part.  He seemed to say he would, as much as Scarecrow can say much of anything, but it isn’t enough for everyone in that trio.  John, a worn-down pessimist, doesn’t believe Scarecrow is entirely on the level.  He’s seen too much, and it’s not an easy thing for him to simply trust a machine when so many of them have been enemies to him and his family.  Don, he seems to be somewhere in the middle, a man who figures everyone does something to get something for themselves.  That’s a more utilitarian view of things, in a sense.  Maureen is the eternal optimist and idealist, so of course she believes Scarecrow is going to help them.  Sure, she takes an emergency weapon from John as the plan involves her being alone with Scarecrow while Don and John distract the other robots with a high speed chariot.

This being Lost in Space and generally a more family-friendly sort of show, that means Maureen is basically right, but it doesn’t matter because SAR was waiting in ambush and the plan doesn’t work.  Scarecrow is captured, and the humans are still without an engine to get to Alpha Centauri with.

But really, isn’t Lost in Space as a whole about trust?  Will, like his mother, has endless trust in the Robot.  That’s been earned, but it took a while.  Smith outright admits she can’t really trust anyone because she wasn’t really built that way.  She’ll need some leverage since, with Grant Kelly awake and an experienced pilot, that means one more person has to go to sleep in a cryo-pod to preserve oxygen, and that someone would have to be her.  Will gives it to her.

But can they trust an auto-pilot over an experienced astronaut?

Judy can, but the ship they’re on won’t take off with the auto-pilot on as Will went off to explore that alien city some more, and Judy and Smith had to get them.  Grant, well, he sees the solution as shutting the computer off.  He’s a pilot.  He can fly them through some asteroids.  He’s been asleep for 20 years and doesn’t know about the advances in technology, but the Jupiter is about the same as his own.  He can take the ship off the ground.

But the asteroids are worse, and he’s ignoring the auto-pilot that seems to be suggesting that he fly directly into a large rock.  Will Judy reconnect the auto-pilot?

Actually, duh.  Yes.  And it works.  Maureen programmed the dang thing.  Grant is impressed, so maybe next time lead with the “Maureen made it” part.

Really, this is a fun show, but as someone who doesn’t really binge, it can be hard to write about.  But this whole “trust” thing seemed to work.  Maybe next time, they’ll have some other virtue in common across the various plotlines.