Sneaking out of the Jupiter 2 at night against his father's orders, Will goes to repair the chariot. While he is working, the Robot follows him in order to carry out Dr. Smith's orders to eliminate non-essential personnel as opportunity arises. Will manages to radio for help and to keep the Robot occupied with a testing program until help arrives and the Robot is deactivated.
The next day, John announces his plan for the crew to turn their campsite into a long-term, self-sufficient community. Despite the native soil's unknown characteristics, Smith plants peas in the ground. These quickly grow to monstrous proportions, full of dangerous, worm-like creatures and must be destroyed. John later examines the remains of the plants and the soil and determines that a microscopic life form pervades both, and may be responsible for all lifeforms on the planet having the potential of great size, and great danger to the Robinsons in consequence.
When the local vegetation begins dying off, apparently due to frost, the Robinsons investigate. After a visit to their weather station, they are able to determine that the weather will only continue to grow colder, dropping to as much as 125˚ below zero. While John and Don are at the station, they are menaced by a gigantic cyclops and driven into a small cave to escape it. Will spies the creature with the Jupiter 2's radio telescope and races to the weather station, where he is able to kill the monster and save his father and Don.
Because of the dropping temperatures, the Robinsons plan to abandon their campsite and head south to warmer temperatures. When the chariot has been loaded in preparation for their journey, Penny is nowhere to be found. With only a short time before departure will be futile, John takes the jetpack to search for her. When he finally locates her and returns her and the bloop to the Jupiter 2, the chariot must leave immediately.
As they begin their journey, Dr. Smith and the Robot remaining behind, they encounter another gigantic cyclops which throws boulders at them, but Don is able to bring it down with a laxer blast. Their journey must be interrupted in order to make repairs to the chariot, damaged by the cyclops' attack and the Robinsons pitch camp for the night. They are able to resume their journey the next day, but soon encounter a ferocious electrical storm and they are forced to seek shelter in a nearby cave. Finding the ruins of an ancient civilization there, the children, Don, and Judy become trapped in a small chamber. John and Maureen race to free them as the ruins begin to crumble when powerful tremors rock the planet.
Notes on Scientific Accuracy
"Data inaccurate... data inaccurate... humanoid not 18 meters tall" -the robot
The most interesting alien creatures in this episode were the cyclopian giants, resembling those in Greek mythology. Could a humanoid actually be 18 meters tall? Eighteen meters is roughly ten times normal human height. If a human being were scaled up ten-fold in size, its bones would be ten times as thick as those of a normal sized human. However, volume does not scale linearly with size. A ten-times bigger human would have one thousand times the volume of a normal human. One thousand times the volume would mean one thousand times the weight. The giant's bones would be far too thin and fragile to support this much weight. Thus, assuming flesh and bone like ours, 18 meter tall giants are not possible.
Background Information
- Having Smith and the Robot stay at the ship allows reuse of the pilot episode footage of the journey south.
- The title of this episode is taken from Genesis 6:4
- Will plays the guitar and sings "Greensleeves", which was the theme song to the "Lassie" TV show, which starred June Lockhart.
- Penny plays with a turtle, leftover from the unaired pilot, "No Place To Hide".
- Will is seen running after ostriches, taken from the unaired pilot.
- This is the first time we see Maureen use the laundry machine.
- Smith reveals the ability to cook.
- This marks the first time that the jetpack is used in the series. The famous music that accompanies it, contrary to belief, was not written by John Williams or any other of the show's composers: it was in fact, the track 'The Marker' by Bernard Herrmann, part of the soundtrack for the film 'the Twelve Mile Reef'. The eerie music played in the ancient city is from 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' and was also used in the pilot.
- This is also the first episode that shows the planet Priplanus was once inhabited by humanoids, albeit ones that did not seem to advance beyond the equivalent of Earth's ancient civilizations like Babylon or Egypt.
- Deleted scenes for this episode would have had the Cyclops in a friendly interaction with Penny, who gives the creature a flower. Later, the same Cyclops approaches Smith and the Robot thinking they are also friendly - Smith panics and has the Robot blast the giant, who drops the flower and runs off. Shot for the pilot but similarly unused was a sequence where Professor Robinson, on the jetpack, runs into the giant in flight- after being grabbed he manages to shoot the creature and get away.
- The Robot turns off the force field in order to leave the campsite. But, in "The Raft" we find out that the force field only works one way and only stops objects that are approaching. This means that the robot didn't have to turn off the force field.
- The title card shows the Jupiter 2 has crashed in such a way that the upper deck is a few feet above ground level and the lower deck is somewhat visible. Over the first season the upper deck becomes level with the ground outside, suggesting the ship is settling.
- The Jupiter 2 scene where they are watching the Cyclops on the telescope, appears to be missing the airlock compartment. The door opens directly into the control room of the ship. Also footage from the pilot is reused.
- Will claims that he's using a radio telescope to view the Cyclops, which is impossible since that instrument does not work with visible light.
- The Cyclops was supposed to have a functioning, blinking eye but this was vetoed by Irwin Allen because of the cost.
- Director of the episode, Leo Penn, is famous Hollywood actor Sean Penn’s father.
- Careful editing appears to show Professor Robinson flying in the jet pack for minutes; in reality the actual footage only lasted for seconds.
- Witness the major physical moment between Major West and Judy Robinson in the entire series – a passionate kiss from Don…. onto Judy’s hand!
- During the planet quake scene in the underground city, Irwin Allen stood up on the catwalk out of shot above the actors, and banged a hammer against a metal wastepaper basket, in an effort to jolt the actors into reacting realistically. Unsurprisingly, it worked!
- After Dr Smith de-activates the Robot, everyone returns to the Jupiter, leaving the tin man behind. When we next see the Robot, he is still de-activated, but is now inside the spaceship.
- More lazy continuity here, as in a later scene the de-activated Robot is next to the spaceship. When the men leave to check the weather station, the Robot has disappeared! When Will re-activates it later that night, the mechanical man is now next to the force field.
Classic Lines
- [Major West confronts Dr Smith who is holding a soup ladle] Dr Smith: "Threaten violence will you? Stand back sir, or I'll drum on your noggin 'till it rings like the Canterbury Chimes!"
- [Professor Robinson and Major West are driving back to the Jupiter II in the Chariot] Don: "Bad terrain. You'd better slow down." John: "Strange, I never noticed those rough spots before." [Exterior shot shows the Chariot rolling over giant footprints]
- Will:"When Dad call me William in THAT tone of voice, it's no use arguing"
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