Coming straight after "The Questing Beast", this episode seems quite good by comparison.
I guess Lost in Space just had to do a "toymaker" episode, after all "Doctor Who" also had "The Celestial Toymaker", so us sci-fi fans sort of expect something like this to come along.
The intergalactic mail order machine that we saw in back in "The Android Machine" appears again, although it is in fact meant to be another machine. This one's long forgotten about and it's been left unmaintained for eons such that it's just about burnt out.
Naturally, greed-driven Dr Smith can't resist recklessly messing around with it, despite the protestations of the robot, and (this isn't really a spoiler as it happens right at the beginning) he gets zapped inside the machine, for the second time in the series that is.
This time though, we do get to see what it's actually like inside the machine (the toy department at least). The sets are quite well done, so that you do get the feeling of being in a very large place where you could get lost and there are toys just about everywhere. This is the sort of place I'd love to have explored as a child. It's a typical toymaker's stomping ground.
There's also a small glimpse of a Christmas scene back on Earth which is a nice touch, but apparently this episode originally aired on the 25th Jan 1967, so it's peculiarly exactly one month late to be a Christmas episode.
The aged toymaker character himself is quite well played, in that we do see how eccentric he's become.
Mr Zumdish returns again and despite his extremely irritating demeanour, manages to efficiently wrap up all of the loose ends at the end of the story.
All that, and I didn't even manage to mention the potential planetary catastrophe! So, if nothing else, there is quite a lot going on in this episode.
I guess Lost in Space just had to do a "toymaker" episode, after all "Doctor Who" also had "The Celestial Toymaker", so us sci-fi fans sort of expect something like this to come along.
The intergalactic mail order machine that we saw in back in "The Android Machine" appears again, although it is in fact meant to be another machine. This one's long forgotten about and it's been left unmaintained for eons such that it's just about burnt out.
Naturally, greed-driven Dr Smith can't resist recklessly messing around with it, despite the protestations of the robot, and (this isn't really a spoiler as it happens right at the beginning) he gets zapped inside the machine, for the second time in the series that is.
This time though, we do get to see what it's actually like inside the machine (the toy department at least). The sets are quite well done, so that you do get the feeling of being in a very large place where you could get lost and there are toys just about everywhere. This is the sort of place I'd love to have explored as a child. It's a typical toymaker's stomping ground.
There's also a small glimpse of a Christmas scene back on Earth which is a nice touch, but apparently this episode originally aired on the 25th Jan 1967, so it's peculiarly exactly one month late to be a Christmas episode.
The aged toymaker character himself is quite well played, in that we do see how eccentric he's become.
Mr Zumdish returns again and despite his extremely irritating demeanour, manages to efficiently wrap up all of the loose ends at the end of the story.
All that, and I didn't even manage to mention the potential planetary catastrophe! So, if nothing else, there is quite a lot going on in this episode.
