User Reviews

Combine some delicious dialog, an Academy-Award-winning actress (Merceded McCambridge), a scantily-clad young woman (Sherry Jackson), hints of the occult, along with a little botany, and you've got the recipe for "The Space Croppers".

The installment, shown late in season one of the show, is far from the more "serious" tone of the initial episodes, which were more adventure, laced with family drama. "Croppers" is mostly comedy, with that being found in the chats between McCambridge's "Sybilla" and Jonathan Harris's "Dr. Smith". The two chew just the right amount of scenery, with McCambridge having a slight edge as her character shifts between uninterested to slightly flattered from the amorous "pursuit" of Dr. Smith.

Jackson, a film star who had earlier played the eldest daughter on "The Danny Thomas Show", assays the role of witch-child-hillbilly "Sybilla" and she plays her to the hilt, mixing innuendo with down-home "corn". Jackson would, just one year later, endear herself to sci-fi fans as a sexy android in the classic "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" episode of "Star Trek".

Dawson Palmer, an actor who played many-a-costumed-alien on the show, does fairly well in the mostly-grunting role of "Keel". Sadly, the lanky performer and former basketball star would die in an automobile accident some short six years after this episode aired.

"The Space Croppers" may not rank in the top ten of "LiS" eps but it's still entertaining and, for that, it is noteworthy.

In fact, one might say that the episode is an homage to the more popular "The Beverly Hillbillies" - which, like "Lost in Space", aired on CBS - and ABC's more fan favorite "Bewitched" - with similarities between McCambridge's character and Agnes Moorehead's "Endora".

Interesting, that no other reviewer mentioned guest star Mercedes McCambridge. This episode was several years before she provided the voice of the Devil, in some famous movie about demonic possession! Even using her normal voice, you could hear indications of why she was chosen for the movie role. In this episode, McCambridge and her daughter are depicted as witches (and a son who is a werewolf). Although initially turned off by Dr Smith, Sybilla eventually agrees to marry him! Of course, Smith and Sybilla each have their own agendas. Sherry Jackson (as Efra) was kind of a turn off. To be clear, her character was a turn off, but she surely caught my eye. I loved when Efra started coming on to Don, and Judy got jealous! Throughout the series, the "relationship" between Judy and Don is only brushed upon. This made Judy's jealousy more interesting. Realistically, however, Judy had no more reason to be jealous of Efra than she would to be jealous of the Robot! Marta Kristen and Sherry Jackson? No comparison. All in all, a pretty good episode.

It probably wasn't smart starting my revisit to the 60s sci-fi family series, "Lost in Space" with "The Space Croppers", but nothing can change that now. I had to keep firmly established in my mind that this show was aimed primarily at children, but I was hoping it wouldn't be such an annoyance--but I still painfully sat through it just the same like a trooper. Here we have "space hillbillies". Yes, space hillbillies who land on planets, steal from inhabitants, use the land as farming ground for carnivorous flowers (yes, sigh, the exact same monstrous flowers in the "Judy themed" episode "Attack of the Monster Plants"), get their share of the crop these flowers yield, and leave them to devour any living creature on said planet once they blast off. Sherry Jackson is certainly fetching as Effra, while Mercedes McCambridge devours the scenery something fierce as mama Sybilla. Sybilla has a tall son named Keel who turns into a werewolf when the two moons are full. Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris, as usual over-the-top often displaying his cowardice, conniving a plot to seduce (hehe) Sybilla with grotesque flattery to the point of nausea) sees an opportunity to get off the planet, hoping to hitch a ride in the alien family unit's space ship, his eyes set for earth (the ship, when open, looks like a farmhouse in the old west). Meanwhile, the Robinsons contend with their new neighbors who aren't exactly hospitable to anyone that "trespasses" on their land (amazing that these aliens simply land on a spot and claim it as theirs, alien eminent domain). A little subplot establishes that the Robinson family need to install a pipeline in order to attain fresh water in order to survive, with Smith supposed to help (as expected Smith gets out of it with help from Mumy's Will who programs Robot to do the hard labour while they go on a "safari" to hunt for the werewolf that turns out to be Keel, who even in human form is animalistic, borderline Neanderthal). Interesting is how Sybilla goes from wearing rags to an outfit right off the set of Ivanhoe or something as Smith courts her. A werewolf certainly is a catchy means to have you tune into this episode, but it is everything else included that might make you want to throw up. Jackson, who would certainly make my heart beat at an upward speed, takes a shine to Major Don West (Mark Goddard), raising the ire of Judy (Marta Christen). One hilarious scene has Keel lifting Don in the air in a bear hug when West catches the brute eating the Robinsons' vegetables! Fans of McCambridge may enjoy her exchanges with Harris, but I was wincing at their time together on screen, as it shows just how desperate Smith is wanting to go to earth, willing to attach himself to a crazy family and their matriarch in order to do so, using every kind of compliment he could muster. The opening of the episode has Smith, Will, and Penny placing items in time capsules for others who might land on the planet to discover, leading to their meeting the werewolf, Keel. I was amazed that the Robinsons use gas as a means to kill the giant plants, run amok, spread through the land like wildfire, without wearing masks over their faces to keep them from inhaling the toxic fumes, yet unharmed by the chemicals used.

This episode had a lot of promise. It started well and had a creepy atmosphere but went down hill when it showed the werewolf foot prints turn into shoe prints. Couldn't they at least had them turn into bare human foot prints. Then when the werewolf turns human it's a goofy human actor pretending to be a hick. The episode bottoms out when the hick (Keel) is trying to plow the ground for the crops in the cheesiest way possible. On the upside, the plot for this episode was almost certainly written by author John Keel, who told me when we met in 2003 that he wrote several episodes of Lost in Space and Honey West. I knew this was a Keel episode when I realized the werewolf's name is Keel, and John Keel had a very strong interest in monsters and the occult.