'Lost in Space' is enjoyable sci-fi that also highlights a uniquely Netflix problem
Every week, Lost in Space had a new story to tell.
I still remember watching old reruns of the 1960s series on WPIX 11 as a kid. The Robinson family's struggles to keep life comfy and happy while stranded on a distant alien world were captivating to my 10-year-old brain.
Every week was a new adventure, a new obstacle the family would have to overcome. There were constants in the friendship between Will Robinson and Robot and in Dr. Smith's self-serving machinations. But each episode stood alone as a journey with a beginning, middle, and end.
The alien vistas hooked me, but low stress, no-commitment-required storytelling kept me coming back.
The newly released Lost in Space reboot series from Netflix treads a different path. It still chases the same premise of telling a sort of Swiss Family Robinson-in-space story, but like so many of the other favorites from our present-day golden age of television, it has a longer story to tell.
One episode leads into the next, then the next. The beginning, middle, and end play out over the course of 10 hours. Episodes don't really stand up on their own; instead, they fill out another piece of the narrative puzzle, slowly addressing questions like what led to the Robinsons being here, is there anyone else out there, and can there be any hope of an escape?
It's a good time. Just like the original, there's a family-friendly quality to the new Lost in Space. The threats faced by the Robinsons and their fellow travelers are real, but everyone is ultimately safe. When characters take risks, you know they're going to be fine in the end.
In other words: Game of Thrones this is not. And there's nothing wrong with that. Hopeful, generally happy stories feel like a weird kind of sci-fi in this increasingly hellish 2018, but the unforced low stakes in the Robinson family's adventures is both welcome and comforting.
Despite that, I couldn't help but think back on all of those old Lost in Space episodes I watched as a kid as I wound through the reboot. I wondered what 10-year-old me would think of this new series. Surely, I'd again find myself captivated by the production; Netflix clearly spent piles of money to make the show's alien planet feel alive.
Would it be enough, though? I fell for the original Lost in Space because it didn't ask too much of me. Everything I needed to know about the characters and their interpersonal relationships was contained within a single episode.
The reboot's serial pace instead builds relationships over time, and it's up to you to keep track. The content is family-friendly, but the actual storytelling demands a level of longer-term investment.
None of this is new, of course. Serial storytelling on TV is all the rage these days. Adult audiences, at least, have come to expect that latching on to a new show means investing in its story. There's still plenty of programming that focuses more on a threat/monster/conflict-of-the-week approach, but it's not what's popular.
This is especially true for streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, which drop full seasons worth of programming in a single day. Can you think of any story-driven Netflix series that embraces a conflict-of-the-"week" approach? They're all ongoing stories, with each new episode building on the last one.
Part of this is definitely a product of the way TV has evolved over the last 20 years. Late '90s programming like The Sopranos and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine got audiences hooked on continuing stories, while later shows like Lost and Fringe came along and doubled down.
But conflict-of-the-week programming still exists on TV. It's most prevalent in sitcoms -- look at Black-ish or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- but there are other shows, like Criminal Minds, that stick to weekly, one-and-done stories. Shows where, for any connective tissue that ties a run of episodes together, you can't synopsize a full season in a single paragraph.
That breed of storytelling doesn't seem to exist on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, except in the cases of talk shows and anthology series. The all-at-once release format -- and the production process that allows it to happen -- is almost certainly responsible for that.
It's a shame. As much as I would heartily recommend Lost in Space to anyone that enjoys sci-fi stories, I can't escape the feeling that the reboot casts aside the core elements that drew me to the original series in the first place.
Topics Netflix
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
