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 Harris) was the only character from the original program to appear in the special, along with the Robot (who was named Robon and employed in flight control rather than a support activity). The spacecraft was launched vertically by rocket, and Smith was a passenger rather than a saboteur. The pilot for the animated "Lost in Space" series was not picked up as a series, and only this episode was produced. This cartoon was included in the Blu-ray release on September 15, 2015. 20th Century Fox has released the entire series on DVD in Region 1. Several of the releases contain