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 Robinson was also explored in the film and in the song "Ballad of Will Robinson"—written and recorded by Mumy. In 1998 Dark Horse Comics published a three-part story chronicling the Robinson Clan as depicted in the film. In 2006 Bill Mumy and Peter David co-wrote "Star Trek: The Return of the Worthy", a three-part story that was essentially a crossover between "Lost in Space" and "Star Trek" with the "Enterprise" crew encountering a Robinson-like expedition amongst the stars, though with different characters. In 2016, American Gothic Press published a six-issue miniseries titled "Irwin Allen's Lost in Space, the Lost Adventures",