Lost in Space as a happy crew without internal conflicts. While many storylines in the later series focused primarily on Dr. Zachary Smith, a stowaway and saboteur played by Jonathan Harris, he was absent from the unaired pilot. His character was added after the series was commissioned for production. The pilot episode was first aired on television during a 1997 retrospective. CBS bought the series, turning down "Star Trek" in favor of "Lost in Space". Before the first episode was filmed, the characters Smith and the Robot were added, and the spaceship, originally named "Gemini 12", was renamed the "Jupiter 2" and redesigned.
Lost in Space syndication for many years, appearing on the USA Network in the mid-to-late 1980s, and on FX (TV channel), Syfy, ALN (TV network) and Hulu. In early 1968, while the final third-season episode "Junkyard in Space" was in production, the cast and crew were informally made to believe the series would return for a fourth season. Allen had ordered new scripts for the coming season. A few weeks later, however, CBS announced a list of television series they were renewing for the 1968–69 season, and "Lost in Space" was not included. CBS executives failed to offer any reasons why "Lost in