Can Season 1 be viewed in Color?
So all of season 1 is viewed in black and white. Is there any technology that can show those episodes in color?
sharehi they can do what they have been doing to i love lucy colorization the problem is a lot of people are against it they hate the idea of colorize something that is black and white show's or movies. am a big fan of lost in space the old movie serials along with the old Universal horror movies/other black and white movies/show's i would love to see them in color have nothing against black and white film but i feel having these in color would help the new generation to watch them cause there are only a few that would watch stuff in black and white the rest won't even bother cause its not in color that's how i feel
shareWELL We'd see Judy's red dress
shareI was watching FOLLOW THE LEADER on ME-TV the other night and the end of the episode shows where Will rescues his dad from being overtaken by the Alien leader in Black and White (whole episode up to that point was in Black an White). Then next thing you know is the episode resumes in color with the crew all having to overcome random earthquakes (or preplanisquakes lol). The episode ended in color with the cliffhanger of Don starting to fall off the chariot.
So I guess someone from ME-TV liked my suggestion and started to show Season 1 in color.
Funny, but no...
"Follow The Leader" was the last episode of Season 1, so the color footage at the end is the "teaser" for the Season 2 color opening episode "Blast Of Into Space."
Originally, "Follow The Leader" would have ended with a teaser for the following week's first B&W re-run, "Attack Of The Monster Plants."
Once the show went into syndication (and onto DVD), the teaser for "Blast Off Into Space," originally seen at the end of the final Season 1 re-run, "Wish Upon a Star" (9/7/66), was placed at the end of "Follow The Leader."
FWIW:
When LIS went into reruns at the end of season 1, they looped the series back to episode #14, "Attack of the Monster Plants" and re-ran the series in order from that point on. After the second showing of "Follow The Leader," they aired three earlier episodes, "One Of Our Dogs Is Missing," "Invaders From the Fifth Dimension" and "Wish Upon A Star" before the start of Season 2.
Apparently, they thought that showing earlier episodes would ruin the continuity of Robinsons already having become established on the planet. Also, the early episodes had experienced low ratings in their initial airings, and so they may have feared airing them for that reason as well.
It's ironic because, today, those first episodes are considered among the best of the series.
Oh lol. My bad.
I shall say you must have been around for the original LIS run back in the 60s. Questions:
1. When the 1990s came were you disappointed that we were not as advanced as LIS had us in the 1990s?
2. With a cliffhanger each week where you all on the edge with each episode?
I was very young when LIS first aired. Too young, in fact, to appreciate whether LIS was a realistic view of the 1997 - or to appreciate how far away 1997 was.
By the time of the moon landing, though, I can tell you that it was commonly believed that we would be on Mars by the 1980's and no doubt would have a lunar base something like the one seen in "2001 A Space Odyssey" by the turn of the century. After the Apollo program ended, however, the manned exploration of space became a much lower priority.
Still, there was a fairly large manned space station by the 1990's, just not a huge rotating wheel with a Howard Johnson's hotel, as seen in 2001. [Though you could argue that the International Space Station has, in fact, functioned as a "hotel" for the handful of millionaires who have paid to go there.]
I'm sure I found the LIS cliffhangers exciting back then. What I really recall, though, was that the episodes seemed to end, but then, when they came back from commercial... there was even more! As a very young kid, it felt like you were getting to stay up a bit later, even though you weren't.
Born in 1982 so I had to get reruns. I first knew about the show in 1991 as reruns were going on USA Network. It was Summer of 1991. I remember watching first ever episode with Smith getting caught on board. Being young I was thinking Smith was a regular passenger on the ship and they did not have enough freezing tubes for him so he had to ride in a regular seat. I was figuring he was just nervous about take off. When the Robinson's came out of the tubes I figured it was planned. They stopped showing reruns after Season 2 ended. I did not watch Season 3 until 1994.
shareI believe that special effects from some or all of the first season episodes were filmed in color but aired in black and white like the rest of the episodes. They were filmed in color in case they would be reused in later seasons filmed in color. Waste not, want not.
The scene where the chariot drives by the dead giant was clearly inspired by a similar scene with crewmen walking past a dead stegosaur in King Kong (1933). In Black and white it is very hard to see the giant in the background, but I saw a color clip of the scene and the giant was much more visible.
Certain stock scenes like the ship flying through space, the chariot traveling across the barren wasteland, and John blasting off in the jetpack were filmed in color. I can't remember which episode it is, but there's a color episode where John uses the jetpack. When they show him wearing the jetpack, he's wearing the early season 1 outfit with the red turtleneck. Also, the season three episode, "Kidnapped in Space" where the Jupiter 2 gets swallowed by another ship, they use the same footage from the season one episode, "The Derelict".
shareI am watching LIS on Hulu, and noticed the teaser at the end of Season 1's last ep looked familiar. So I happened to rewatch the plant episode later, and there it was at the beginning of it. I thought Hulu messed up, but then I read the above and now it makes sense.
shareSeason 3's costumes aren't as garish as season 1's -- looki9ng at native color photos, the colors were clearly chosen to complement black and white filming. Colors which might not be fully reproduce-able with synthetic colorization. Look at the Skipper's outfit from season 1 of Gilligan's Island -- they couldn't get close to the same blue hue.
Colorizing also has a problem with skin tone reproduction, especially with higher areas of contrast. As a result, colorizing usually tones down skin hues to look murky.
And lack of color cast, though that isn't a problem anymore - usually seen in teeth, eyes or anything gray is left untouched, and it sticks out badly as a result.