Dr. Smith Got Under My Skin

One of the most powerful parasocial relationships I had as a kid was with Dr. Zachary Smith, the reluctant stowaway portrayed by Jonathan Harris in the classic 1960's Irwin Allen science-fiction TV show, Lost in Space.

He started the series as a straight-up psychopathic villain but evolved into an increasingly ridiculous protagonist. By the end of the series, he was clearly the main character, with each episode revolving around him, the Robot, and "young master William," Will Robinson, as portrayed by Bill Mumy.

Lost in Space

First, a little about the show, which aired on CBS from 1965 to 1968. The "Space Family Robinson" spent 83 episodes spacewrecked or wandering through space, trying to reach Alpha Centauri or Earth. They never did. The show was cancelled due to budget issues, a ratings dip, and cast tensions.

In the show, due to an overpopulation crisis, the United States enacts a plan to colonize space. It sends the five-member Robinson family and pilot Donald West on a five-and-a-half-year mission to Alpha Centauri in the flying-saucer-shaped Jupiter 2.

Unbeknownst to the cryogenically frozen crew, a spy from an unidentified (cough, USSR, cough) rival sneaked on board to sabotage the ship. The spy, Dr. Zachary Smith, ends up trapped on the ship during launch, causing it to veer off course due to his added weight. That, and his previous sabotage, caused the Jupiter 2 to shoot off at light speed in a random direction, and thus, they are Lost in Space.

Dr. Zachary Smith

When the show began, Dr. Smith was a straight-up villain. He lied, cheated, and stole. He reprogrammed the robot to murder the rest of the crew. He handed a child over to some aliens who wanted to use his brain to fix their computers. He was a bad guy.

As the show continued, Dr. Smith lost his psychopathy but kept the manipulativeness, cowardice, and foolhardiness. He was a strange mix of malignant and ignorant, like Gilligan meets Wormtongue. Most of the time, all of the other characters saw through his schemes, except for young Will Robinson. Dr. Smith spent a lot of time convincing Will to do something dangerous, only to hide from the consequences. 

I can't convey the level of hatred I had for this character when I was younger.

In a genre, medium, and social climate that imposed a simplistic binary template on everything, Dr. Smith was complicated. He stood apart from the other characters, who were flat and predictable. He was absurdly cowardly, shirked responsibility at every opportunity, verbally abused others, put children in harm's way, and connived to serve himself. However, he wasn't just that. He usually had a redemption arc, or was subject to some poetic justice. When the wheels he set in motion led to their inevitable outcomes, he usually stepped up and took his medicine. Then he would project his inadequacies on the robot in a tirade of alliterative insults.

When I was a kid, I could not tolerate Dr. Smith's dissonance. His complexity (relative to the other characters) was offensive. My psychology was attracted to heroes and villains, not weak and selfish narcissists who were pushed into begrudging heroism.

Story, Character, and TTRPGs

Now that I am an adult, with a more nuanced view of reality, things are different. My immersion in the world of narrative, and especially the medium of tabletop role-playing games, has made me a connoisseur of plot and characters. Now, the other characters from Lost in Space are boring and offensive in their simplicity. Now, Dr. Smith is a character I can savor. He's predictable enough to be reliable, but also an agent of chaos. He's not an enemy. He ultimately "fights" on the side of the heroes, but he causes as many complications as he solves. The balancing act between his vulgar motivation and his emotional attachments adds flavor and complexity.

Johnathan Harris

We have Johnathan Harris primarily to thank for Dr. Smith. Not only did he portray him, but he is also responsible for his evolution. Midway through the first season, Harris began rewriting his lines to add more humor. The audience approved, so Irwin Allen gave Harris free rein. According to Billy Mumy:

"... we'd start working on a scene together, and he'd have a line, and then in the script I'd have my reply, and he'd say, 'No, no, no, dear boy. No, no, no. Before you say that, The Robot will say this, this, this, this, this, this, and this, and then, you'll deliver your line.' He truly, truly single-handedly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we know — this man we love to hate, a coward who would cower behind the little boy, 'Oh, the pain! Save me, William!' That's all him!"

The Other Smiths

No one has been able to play Dr. Smith since. Gary Oldman did great in the 1998 film, but had an impossible job. He had to take Smith from a psychopath to a character you love to hate, but nonetheless root for in the course of a single film. I don't think he pulled it off.

Parker Posey also did a great job portraying a character named Dr. Smith with self-serving motivations in the 2018 reboot, but she wasn't really Dr. Smith. I enjoyed the show, but it jettisoned much of what made the original series what it was in favor of a rehash of the 2004 Battlestar Galactica reboot.

After all these years, Johnathan Harris' Dr. Smith lives rent-free in my head. No longer do I wish that Don would just take him behind a rock and strangle him to death. Now I have a deeper appreciation for the character, and love to play and see characters that combine anti-social personality traits and reluctant heroism. You won't catch me watching any old episodes of Lost in Space, though. I can appreciate it aesthetically, but Dr. Smith is too much!