From the title,to the episode...this was the best episode. A story about someone other than Will ,Robot,and Dr.Smith.Kind of dark and spooky and a little mushy,but that's cool.It's got classic Dr.Smith,Will and Robot too.The rest of the family and Don get some play too.Last of first season and black and white.Too bad they did not keep going in this direction.

This episode compared with the "anti-matter world" episode in the later season has my following opinion:I think "follow the leader" is more eerie sci-fi and realistic. Especially with the music (from "day the earth stood still") in the background that plays in the cave during the dialogue between the alien and John. Black and white traditional drama makes it additionally serious and suspensful. John becomes even more intimidating when he is taken over and runs the ship after going to his family. I always felt that when movies or programs for theatre are assigned a category, they are more fitting to remain in that category. But when you modify science fiction to include some hilarious humor as the third season of lost in space did, it just seems to flatten and dilute and disappoint those devoted to sci-fi. Comedy programs and horror is the same, Comedy that was originally designed for comedy, but later is superimposed by the producers to include bloodshed violence, melodrama, etc. wanting to fix something that is not broken to make it better, turns out worse. Like I said as the adage: "if it isn't broken, don't try to fix" you'll just make it worse. The first season of Lost in Space was an amazing classic and very realistic especially after lift off from alpha control, and the the demeanor of the robot evil and alien and machine like voice was real. But when you see the robot in third season, there is no match and he seems so cowardly. Is a robot supposed to be a coward and helpless in real sci-fi???

Why was there no thriving civilization on this planet? Because it was too crowded. An alien race trying to build an underground city would keep running into sleeping armies, abandoned artifacts (someone covered it with a curtain before they departed), and abandoned robotoid killers.This episode is terrific.