THE MAGIC MIRROR
WRITER-JACKSON GILLIS
DIR-NATHAN JURAN
NARRATION: Last week, as you recall, a terrifying cosmic storm threatened our space family, a storm whose strange and incredible power was soon to force open a mysterious door to another world.
TEASER-fully recapped--different takes and shots from the last week's cliffhanger abound in the teaser--almost as if it was refilmed--especially when John goes to wake Smith up.
It looks like dusk as John is covering the hydroponic and other tables. There is lightning and a storm. Maureen calls John inside and a table falls over. They see a radiation meter--there is cosmic radiation in the storm. Maureen opens the door for Judy who runs across the camp to the ship door, "I made it." Don tells them, "Good thing Smith installed those arresters last week." As Don goes below to check on the kids, Judy tells John (NOTE: NO CLOSE UP ON JUDY) she those the arresters under some brush this morning. John goes to Smith who is checking his heartbeat as the lightning blasts outside. He asks Smith if he installed those arresters he asked him to about ten days ago. Smith says a man of his years cannot do all this manual labor. He never gives an answer that lets John know Smith knows what he is talking about--the arresters. Don comes up, "Will's below but Penny must be outside." Maureen says, "Oh John." John pulls Smith outside as tumble weeds fly by. Maureen follows. Don closes the spaceship door! Maureen yells, "Penny!" Penny makes faces in the mirror--an alien mirror turned on its back with strange animal--ram like--faces on it. Penny calls Debbie silly, "It's just a mirror." The mirror has some cracks in it. Smith calls and finds her as she returns his call. Penny picks Debbie up on her arm as they hurry to avoid the cosmic storm. Smith stops and looks at the mirror--"An alien mirror, abandoned by some other space traveler perhaps." It is solid platinum. Smith tells Penny not to bother dad about it--it's worthless he tells her. She urges Smith to come on and go. Lightning blasts again and Smith falls back, the wind picks up. "Under here!" Penny hides under the mirror and Smith follows with Debbie. A lightning blast hits the mirror with blasts. The ram face lights up and smoke emits from its nostrils. John comes running during the storm's worst calling for Penny who yells, "Daddy!" More yelling, more wind, and lightning and then it is over. John pulls Penny out from under. Smith comes up, "I'm alright, Professor, the child's safe, I saved her." John asks about the mirror, telling Smith, "See, we have no idea of knowing what cosmic bolts do to strange metals with alien materials all sorts of strange changes can occur, mysterious forces released." The storm is breaking a bit. The four leave. The mirror lights up and beneath the reflection is a large, eye (surrounded by eyelids).
ACT ONE
Jupiter II campsite--longshot--tent (brief stock shot): in the control room, the utility room door slides open--previously (and later in season three) this was a walk in hall to somewhere else (the lower deck?). Smith looks in and takes a hammer, drill, and diamond saw but jumps as Don yells. Don says, "We missed you at breakfast." Smith complains about his back, "The pain, the pain." He lies about looking for his heating pad which he leant Mrs. Robinson who he says mislaid it. Don has a cure--a shovel. "Last night, Dr. Smith, we almost lost our lives because of you." He tells Smith to start putting in the arresters or he will dig a hole...for Smith to be put in. Smith tells him there is no necessity to be ghoulish about it. John and Don take out the hydroponic garden replacement tops; Maureen is supervising and John knocks her off the ramp on purpose, teasing. She says, "Oh! Oh you." He laughs. "Oh just look at this mess," Maureen looks at the mess. Smith comes out with the arresters, almost hits Maureen in the head as she asks about Penny, "Really Madam with all I have to do, I simply don't have the time to tend to the children too." Then he realizes she asked about Penny; he turns and almost hits Maureen again with the poles, then Don and John, "Excuse me! I'm very sorry." As Smith goes, John says, "I see it but I don't believe it." Don shrugs, "I wish I knew what I did." Smith hits into a rock and drops the arresters on accident, "A man of my talents, forced to be a beast of burden." He sees and spies on Judy and Penny picking up the full length mirror to stand up straight, "Get away from my mirror," he says menacingly. Judy fusses with her hair and asks Penny to help her decide on how to change it as promised. Penny says, "Oh no, not again." Judy wants to change but Penny says, "I'm gonna cut all mine off like Will." Judy says, "Go ahead, be ugly, who cares?" Then Judy hugs her from behind, realizing she hurt Penny. Penny asks, "What's wrong with boys?" Judy just doesn't like to see Penny running around like a boy when she's so beautiful and wants Penny to realize this. Judy tells Penny she is growing up. Penny cries; she wants to stay this way forever. Penny runs off and Judy follows, both watched by a mysterious faced Boy from inside the mirror. Debbie, the bloop, takes Smith's tool bag. Smith goes to the mirror, chasing her, calling her a simian simpleton. The mirror starts to smoke. The Boy lures Debbie toward the mirror with a banana. Smith sees Debbie go right inside the mirror image--and vanish. Not long after, Debbie emerges out of the mirror--Smith realizing the monkey like creature was not merely behind it. Debbie has a banana and a bell. Smith faints.
ACT TWO
Don comes out of the ship to Judy; Maureen comes from the hydro ponic garden. They go to a table where Judy is putting her up in front of a small mirror. Don asks what is wrong with Penny--he just passed her and she seemed lost to the world, answered his question with a totally irrelevant comment ("Oh I must have left it in the control room"). Judy asks if she was crying, commenting about their disagreement about her acting like a tomboy. Maureen says, "You said something about it." Judy has tried to make it up to her. Maureen tells her, "At a certain age, it isn't easy to be a girl--then again it never is." Maureen starts in to talk to her. Don doesn't understand. Penny comes running out of the spaceship with Debbie and a bell, happy, "Look what I've got--a silver bell!" When the two go to Smith near the mirror, Smith is upset, sick-like. He calls Debbie a blithering bloop and an improbable bell ringer. Debbie shows Penny the mirror and in order to show her she is wrong about there not being someone on the other side--pushes Penny--who falls back into the mirror and out of the planet world! Smith sees this and yells.
On the other side, Penny finds herself in a strange otherworld, not realizing it yet. She moves down steps. There is a small pond with an eye coming up to the surface, a roar hinting at more of the beast beneath. Around her are Egyptian type statues, ram-men statues, a giant eye statue. Penny drops something in the pond and the eye of the thing goes away. She hears a laugh. Penny runs up the steps to see the mirror from her side. Outside it is Dr. Smith--but he can't see her. Inside is the crystal-like world with curtains and webs. A voice tells her to jump across the pond and she does. There are dog, lion, unicorn, and fish statues. The boy takes the bell Penny still holds away from her--it's his. Penny asks him to stop answering every one of her questions with a question. Boy tells her this is his whole world, it has no way out, and he watched her from her mirrors. Up high, he takes her to another mirror out. Penny climbs up cabinets and a pile of junk to look out it. She calls it a hole, thinking she is in a cave of some kind. She sees mom fixing lunch. Don and Judy talk near the mirror Judy has on the outside table and bureau. Boy tells Penny, "You'll be here forever." Don and Judy talk about Judy's hair, Don trying to guess what she's done to it--cut it maybe? Maureen comes to the two teasers, "Why don't you hit him?" Judy jokes, "Oh, I will." Maureen, after Judy and Don move off, looks into the mirror--right at Penny--whom she doesn't see. "Maybe I oughta do something to my hair--maybe John will notice." She waves her hand in aggravation at the silly idea, "Ohhh." Throughout this, Penny has tried to get the attention of Judy, Don, and her mother--to no avail. "Mom! Mom! I'm in here!" While she does this, Boy explains, "Penny, don't you understand? Haven't you ever wondered what's on the other side of mirrors? Well, this is--here." Penny gives up and sits down as Maureen waves her hand at her, "Mom."
ACT THREE
Penny sits and mopes. Boy tells her they can share riddles. He avoids her wanting to get out of this place. Penny tries again to call out of the mirror to Judy and Don and sees Maureen fixing lunch. Boy says, "That's not real out there anyway--this is what's real." He tells her they can have fun forever and look out at any mirror anywhere. Penny asks, "Even back to Earth?" Boy tells her more, that he watches people sometimes, "Not that I go in for that type of thing," and tells her people want to have fun all the time. He tells Penny he even cleaned up his house a little for her for the first time ever. Penny sees a giant worm thing with teeth and spikes. Boy slingshots at it and it goes.
Maureen uses smelling sauce on Dr. Smith in the Jupiter II control room. She takes the thermometer out of Smith's mouth. Smith tells her to tell it to him straight, not to bear any "false kindness" on him. She tells him he is fine. He thinks he has cosmic fever--hallucinations and bad dreams. John comes him and Debbie soon follows. NOTE: John calls Debbie a he but Debbie is a she. He saw the arresters. Smith calls Debbie an absurd little animal and tells John he feels strain to the lumber region. Maureen tells him they will have lunch soon. Smith gets up, declaring he is not sick, "I'm as sane as I ever was." He calls Debbie something like a hirsute horror. He will get the arresters but first has another job, "Oh yes, I'll get Penny, oh yes." He now sounds wacky or out of his mind, even dastardly again. John looks at Maureen as Smith leaves in this peculiar way. NOTE: In syndication, the LOST IN SPACE logo pops in here as a commercial break starts, accompanied by five or six notes of music. Penny asks Boy where all the things come from. He says, "You see when anything gets lost or anything that anybody doesn't want any more--it always ends up in here. This isn't really a world. I just said that. See everybody's got a world but this is a dimension, which is much better than a world." They pass large candle holders and arrive at curtains and shelves--Boy's home. Penny says, "I thought you said you cleaned it up a little." He did. Boy lays down on a couch--he doesn't have to wash his face, brush his teeth--only have fun--no goop. Penny says, "Oh yes, I hate goop like Judy and Don." There is an elephant statue, smaller candles, a drum, and a grandfather clock. They hear a warning bell. Penny wonders if it is the glob things but Boy tells her the glob things can't hurt you--they are good for hide n' go seek. Boy has all these things and most of them don't work. There are hundreds of clocks all ringing. Boy used to have a she-cat but she met a tomcat. She used to bring all kinds of things back into this dimension. He can't see the cat now. For human beings, people, there is no way out. Boy looks for his cannon which shoots cosmic particles. The thing coming is "that hairy thing that lives down below." Penny gripes, "Oh, this is a dreadful place." Boy never saw all of the thing at one time. We see an eye come over the curtains and shelves. Boy hides Penny in a grandfather clock.
Smith and Debbie are at the alien mirror. Smith, coyly, calls for Penny, calling Debbie a dreadful creature. He thinks Penny made him think he was sick. Smith gets mad, calling for Penny more forcefully now. He yells, "Penelope, I'm warning you!!!" NOTE: This is the first time Smith or anyone calls Penny Penelope and also the last time. Smith takes a shovel, "This mirror is mine!" He hits the mirror but the shovel bounces off it. Smith, from the force of the bounce, falls right into the mirror as Debbie watches.
ACT FOUR
A painting. The eye. Boy lets the monster chase him--he's not really afraid. Penny tells him to be careful, "please." There is a bird statue. Boy swings at the chandelier into the monster which has one eye on an eye stalk, three or four large fangs and probably more, is hairy and has two arms and two legs. "Run Penny," Boy says calmly. Penny gets out of the clock. Penny runs to Dr. Smith who says he is not angry and holds her. He won't run from his own nightmare. They are near some kind of old fashioned globe. Smith believes this is his dream--that he created Boy and this world. boy says, "He's goofy." He wants to leave Smith who imagines he imagined the beast. Smith looks at a dragon statue, "It's a new dimension, isn't it? Behind all the mirrors of the universe there lies a new dimension and we've entered it." Penny tells him, "We're locked behind the mirrors forever." Boy tells Penny that Smith is in "loony land" and Smith tells him, "I did a sloppy job creating you, young man." The monster comes from behind a curtain. Penny tells Smith it is real but he continues to go on about it being a symbol of all his childhood fears carried into adulthood. Boy laughs as Smith looks for his "hairy friend". Penny runs as the monster comes up behind Dr. Smith and puts its arms around him. Boy tells her she ran the wrong way. Penny finds the cannon but Boy doesn't want her to kill the monster. Penny breaks away, "No, no, it's gonna hurt Dr. Smith!" Boy tells her they can play games, have fun, and stay just the way they are now--always. Smith screams; Penny runs with the found cannon, "I'm coming, Dr. Smith!" Penny shoots the cannon and the creature moves off Smith. Smith takes the gun from her and he and Penny back off together. The monster keeps circling them from various other points--from behind other objects. Smith shoots it each time but its reflection shatters like a mirror. The gun is useless, Smith says and tells Penny, "It must be a product of your dream." He inadvertently fires it down into his own reflection in the pond and vanishes. The gun falls to Penny's feet. Penny passes a totem pole and runs up the steps to see Smith outside. She wants to get out the same way Dr. Smith did but Boy takes the cannon away. Penny tells him he can live with them, "You'd love my whole family and they'd love you." She goes on to tell him he can't live in this awful place forever. He tells her she is talking goop--she's just a girl. Penny says, "That's what I am." Boy tells her she even upset the hairy beast. Penny says, "He can't come of course." Penny continues to plead with him that her family wouldn't make him do chores, study, wash his face, or do jobs--not at first; he wouldn't even have to grow up a little bit at a time.
Smith sees the mirror as a "glare that sets people dreaming."
Boy asks her to stay with him forever, "Forever isn't such a long time."
Smith shakes the mirror.
Penny gasps, "Oh Dr. Smith, don't do that!"
Boy laughs, "Yea, yea, he'll break it and no one'll get out." NOTE: Near Penny and Boy is a giant rock face; also a few horse statues are seen.
Smith uses a rock on it.
Penny says to Boy, "I don't want to stay young forever." Boy tells her everybody does, "I watch them through the mirrors." Penny insists, "They just say that because they know they have to grow older." He gives her the cannon and Penny instructs him on what to do--how to get out. She will go first and he will follow. Boy starts to say something, "Penny..." Penny shoots into her reflection. Boy looks down at the pond, "I can't---I don't have any reflection."
Penny is on the ground outside the mirror. She wakes up. Smith uses a shovel on the "dream" mirror now and cracks parts of it off. He yells loudly at Penny to be still when she protests and screams. Maureen and John come running and find her. Penny says, "He's still in there. He wouldn't come. He could've but he wouldn't." John asks, "Smith, what's going on here?" Smith says, "It's all over. A little girl can fall asleep and dream can't she?" Maureen says, "Penny." Penny looks at the mirror.
CUE SAD MUSIC: Later Penny sits in her room in the dark when Maureen opens the door and asks how she's feeling. Penny asks her what will happen to him. Maureen says, "I don't know him well enough to say." Penny insists, "But it did happen just as I said--it wasn't a dream." Maureen says, "I'm sure it happened just the way you said it did." She asks Penny if she will come out and play a game of space chess with Will. Maureen says, "It might be fun." Penny says, "Fun?" She opens her mirror near her bunk and looks in, "Mom? Mom, what'd you suppose my hair would like if I put it up like this?" Maureen asks, "What brought that on?" Duh. Penny says, "Well, we do have to grow up some time, don't we?" Maureen, sadly, says, "Yes. C'mon dear." She kisses her and they go out. The mirror is zoomed in on slowly and we hear the sound of a bell ringing. A sensitive ending to a nice, bittersweet episode.
CLIFFHANGER: In his dark colored shirt again, Smith runs a wire out to Will and says his new alarm system will work like a witch doctor's charm. Don and John arrive and see this. Don asks, "Smith, don't you ever get tired of tooting your own horn?" Smith wants to catch a thief--some thing that took garden vegetables. John suggests it is a small animal but Smith wonders what an animal would want with the Major's hunting knife. He tells them he is correct--Don did not misplace it. NOTE: And, for once, he is right--it is not an animal. Smith has a laser rifle which he accidentally puts right in John's face by accident, Beg pardon." When Will tells John he wants to sleep outside the Jupiter II perimeter to await the arrival of the thief with Dr. Smith, John wonders if that is a good idea. Will pulls the old "mom said it was alright," and John allows it. Smith says, "The boy is perfectly safe with me." Smith gives Will both bed rolls and pack to carry. Don asks John if he thinks Smith is right. John doesn't think so but he wants to be prepared to act and be outside should Smith's alarm system go off. NOTE: WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO THE FORCEFIELD IN THIS CLIFFHANGER IN THE FOLLOWING EPISODE, THE CHALLENGE? Was it broken or needed recharging or replacements? John and Don go into the spaceship. Later that night---the alarms go off. One of the alarm system pieces looks like a BLAKE'S SEVEN laser gun. Will and Smith are asleep nearby on sleeping bags. Will wakes Smith up who says, "Call me when breakfast is ready." NOTE: This kind of humor would happen whenever someone was waking Smith up---they stir him into a semi conscious form and he'd utter something in his sleep or delirium. Real funny--once in awhile but not all the times it happened. Will gets Smith up fully and pulls him back toward the front of the Jupiter II windows. 25 seconds after the alarms, a light was supposed to come on. Something stirs on a large rock form in front of the camp and Will and Smith. The lights go on. Smith aims his laser rifle at the form but Will moves the rifle up and stops Smith, "It's not an animal!" A boy jumps down off the rock in alien clothing and points a spear dangerously close at Will and Smith, continuing to charge it would seem!
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK SAME TIME SAME CHANNEL slides out.
Replaced with SORRY! TO BE CONTINUED TWO WEEKS FROM TONIGHT. SAME TIME SAME CHANNEL. This time, Dick Tufeld's voice announced, "Opps, sorry, LOST IN SPACE to be continued two weeks from tonight!"
REVIEW: The dragon statue would reappear in VISIT TO HADES; the eye monster would reappear in PRISONERS OF SPACE; the mirror world seemed blurred by vaseline on the lenses. The scene with Judy and Maureen worrying about being overlooked by their mates is chilling and the whole Peter Pan syndrome of not growing up is neatly handled here. The whole fantasy dimension gives this episode's mirror sequences an unearthly feel to it, played out against the more gritty survival scenes during the storm and having to work at being pretty and installing arresters to prevent lightning from hitting. The cosmic storm is a bit unbelievable but fun. Remember, LOST IN SPACE is pure fantasy at this point. We don't know where Boy, the hairy beast, the worms, the whole other dimension, all came from and I am not sure as a viewer, I want to know this. It was a very mysterious episode with lasting impressions. Penny is indeed growing up--she looks very different from the early first seasoners--especially from the first eight or so episodes. This episode takes her growth from MY FRIEND MR. NOBODY a step further. Michael J. Pollard is suitably werid as the Boy without going overboard, something which should have been a lesson to later aliens and strange characters. He also evoked sympathy. This is the last time the white beige shirt of Smith's would be seen on him. It is later given to Ohan in ALL THAT GLITTERS. This episode is fondly remembered by many fans, casual viewers, and non-fans of the series. The music comes from MY FRIEND MR. NOBODY as well as other early first season episodes giving this even more of an otherworldly feel to it. And the inside mirror set was fantastic with lots of neat stuff in it.
SPECULATION: One wild theory is that the Boy somehow did get out of the mirror and became his true self on this side of the mirror---that of an alien boy called Quano in the...