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 (comics) began to produce an ambitious, high-quality "Lost in Space" comic, which was authorized and licensed. It was scripted by Mumy himself, and his intention was to reflect the more serious tone of the first season episodes, but this was somewhat undercut by artwork that sexualized the characters of Judy and Penny Robinson, prompting some exasperated notes from Mumy in the editorial pages. The comic also established a romantic triangle between Judy, Penny (now depicted as someone in her late teens), and Don that was not present in the original series. One storyline in this comic book retcons the "serious episodes"—which