'Lost in Space' Season 2: Dr. Smith aka June Harris is not evil, she is a survivalist
The only character worth looking at (and admiring) on the Netflix space adventure ‘Lost in Space’ is Dr. Smith a.k.a. June Harris (Parker Posey). To the untrained eye, she is the villain. She is evil. She is selfish.
But she is so much more than that.
In season one, Dr. Smith is revealed to be a career criminal called June Harris. The con artist stole her sister’s identity in an attempt to join the human colony bound for Alpha Centauri aboard the mothership Resolute. When alien robots attack, she steals the identity of the real Dr. Smith.
In season two, in the captivity of the Robinson family, however, we see a more nuanced version of the character. Yes, she is selfish. But that never stops her from helping the family or even others in a time of need.
In episode one, ‘Shipwrecked’, Dr. Smith is the one who helps the family sail after converting their spaceship into a sailboat. She helps out Penny (Mina Sudwall) get over her seasickness. In the same episode, she offers to transfuse blood with Don West (Ignacio Serricchio), after alien kelp injures him.
In episode six, ‘Severed’, when Penny, Vijay (Ajay Friese), Dr. Smith and Mr. Jackson (Rob LaBelle) were trapped in a section of the Resolute, because of the “self-perpetuating subatomic oxidizing catalyst” corroding the ship, it is Dr. Smith who came to a surprise rescue.
In order to save the Resolute, Captain Kamal (Sakina Jaffrey) decided to “amputate” a certain section of the ship -- the same section where the four were trapped. The only solution they had was to fit inside one of the storage containers that Don, after the amputation, would rescue from the debris. Mr. Jackson, Vijay and Penny’s teacher, being a claustrophobic person, refused to step inside the container. Yes, Penny had to convince her to do so, but it was Dr. Smith who allayed his fears, making sure all four were safe inside the container when the section was blasted off.
In the finale, Smith offered to rewire the airlock in order to stop the robots. Even after Maureen (Molly Parker) explained her chances of fatality -- the magnetic field could crush her suit, Dr. Smith goes ahead, saying, “Your family is the closest thing I’ve got”.
Throughout the season, we see flashbacks into Dr. Smith’s childhood and youth. She was, no doubt, troubled; always willing to take the short cut. But she was never evil. She only did what she had to and could do. And her sister and mother’s taunts had a lasting effect on her.
Yes. Dr. Smith is without a doubt a criminal. She faked her identity, stole and even led to someone’s death. But she isn’t bad at heart. At the end of the day, she is a survivalist. It may not seem the most virtuous of beliefs, but she does compromise on them every now and then to prove her critics wrong.
‘Lost in Space’ season two is available for viewing on Netflix.
