Here’s an early promotional spot for Lost in Space–which premiered in September 1965 on CBS–featuring footage from the unaired pilot episode (“No Place To Hide”). Note the lack of Dr. Smith and The Robot, neither of whom appeared in the unaired pilot. One other difference was the name of the Robinson’s space ship: in the original pilot it was called the Gemini 12. Inthe series, however, it was called the Jupiter 2.
Footage from the original pilot episode was reused in several early episodes of Lost in Space.
The original pilot for “Lost In Space” was SO much better than the series turned out to be. The only bad thing was no robot. If only they had never introduced ‘Dr. Smith’ or had cast someone who didn’t have that actor’s hambone, down-right embarassing ‘style’ of supposed acting the show could’ve been the best sci-fi series of its time. What a waste of talent such as Lockheart & Williams!
I couldn’t agree more, Jamie. The original pilot shows so much more potential than what ultimately aired, although to be fair the first season wasn’t as campy as the second and third. In some respects, I think the shift to color hurt the show just as much as the increased emphasis on Dr. Smith, Will and The Robot.
That pilot may have been why CBS chose it over STAR TREK…
This is a “syndicated” version of this network promo, as the CBS logo originally appeared before :04. The music is from several “TWILIGHT ZONE” episodes {Jerry Goldsmith’s “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room”, Fred Steiner’s “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim”}, as the network produced this, and used cues from their music library.
Suggested live announcer outcues at :53- “Premiering Wednesday, September 15th, over most of these CBS stations”, “See ‘LOST IN SPACE’, tonight at 6, on TV-68…”.
I may be wrong, as I was a young kid then, but I thought I saw a slightly re-cut version of this promo in early 1966 that included a brief shot of Dr. Smith and the Robot edited-in. The sound portion was unchanged.