‘Lost in Space’ Recap: ‘Contact’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 302 of ‘Lost in Space’.
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Most television shows entering their final year on the air, follow a very specific set of rules to ensure that they provide their fans with a complete and satisfying conclusion to an adventure that started years ago. For instance, they’re big on tying up every single plot thread introduced over the course of the series, so no stone is left unturned, and no questions remain at the end. Plus, if the opportunity is there, the end… in and of itself, will be quite epic in nature so the audience feels as though they got their money’s worth and their time was well spent and at first, it seemed as though Lost in Space on Netflix was heading down that particular path in its third and final season.
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After all, years of plotlines were coming together in the season three premiere and there was a sense of tension building. The kind that spoke to an epic finale that would satisfy and inspire awe. But as it turns out, the final season of this phenomenal show, is going to try and mix things up a bit and dabble in concepts that break from formula and for proof… look no further than the next episode from this final season. For ‘Contact’ is a story that quite frankly, introduces a new character and puts one in a difficult and big emotional situation. For early on in this story, Judy Robinson finds the Fortuna lander intact and to add hope to her mission further, she also finds her father in stasis. And after a harrowing sequence in which she has to race to save his life after breaking him out of hibernation… she finally gets to spend with him and help him rescue his crew.

Which of course, leads to more action and adventure and eventually… an admission that she is his daughter. Something she tried to keep a secret for as long as possible to not overwhelm him and well, this sequence was huge and absolutely broke from formula. Because you just don’t expect to see new characters and new emotional conflicts this big come into a series in the final year. But it’s here in this story and holy cow, it works because in a roundabout way, this too feels like resolution since Judy has been searching for her father for so long now and what’s wild… is that despite shaking things up and adding quite the surprise twist into the mix, the story still found a way to stick to the more traditional format in putting together a final season. Something that was handled by the remainder of the Robinson family.

For John and Maureen and Don were hoping to find the remains of SAR in the hopes of using his corpse to power the Resolute and get it to Alpha Centauri and while they conducted that search, Will and Penny and Smith were exploring the strange cavern that Robot discovered and those two parallel stories matter, because the Robot found a way to connect this family across the stars. For somehow, Robot reactivated Scarecrow and sent him to the Jupiter 2, wherein Robot was able to take control of Scarecrow and get him to stand down so the family could communicate wirelessly and so Scarecrow would help the crew of the Resolute get to their new home and well… that was quite the intricate way to set the stage for a grand fight for the future. Because the robot army won’t like having one of their own, volunteer to help humans and to complicate matters further, SAR is functional again and eager to find Will.

Which is a revelation that definitely adds all kinds of tension to the end of this episode. But while we wait to see how Scarecrow is going to save the day and how on earth the Robot is going to keep Will safe from a resurrected SAR… we can celebrate one unique tale. One that not only had the traditional tense feel from a show in its final season, but also shook things up at the same time. Because the arrival of Grant is a game-changer for certain, as is the fact that Will and the Robot have in essence realized this planet is the birthplace of the Robots that terrorize the galaxy and truly, it will be quite interesting to see how the show reconciles these surprise twists before the end of the journey and the final fight between man and robot… arrives. Until next time.

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