Third Season Episodes - The Haunted Lighthouse (episode 66)

The Robinsons, with a young alien passenger aboard, encounter a strange lighthouse in space. 

The Robinsons prepare to take off from a dreary planet when Maureen notices that Penny is absent. Will says that Penny is looking for her scarf. Penny, meanwhile, has been pulled into a cave by J-5, an alien boy of her own age, who admits he has taken things to get her to smuggle him aboard the Jupiter 2. The only surviving member of an alien colony from another planet, he hopes to get back home.

When Penny cannot promise her father will take him, he frightens her with tales about the Zaybo, a lion-like animal. The Zaybo appears, and Penny runs out of the cave, straight into her father's arms, while J-5 bravely faces the Zaybo. John fires on the Zaybo and it disappears. J-5, unnoticed, picks up the invisible Zaybo that now purrs like a kitten. Smith, already interested inJ-5's planet because of the wealth the boy tells about, is his ally, but Will, terrorized by the Zaybo that J-5 has put in his room, is suspicious. Suddenly the emergency alarms go off. The Jupiter 2 crashes into a fog-bound space vehicle that immediately thrusts out a gangway.

John goes across the gangway and finds Space Force Colonel Fogey, the surviving member of a team sent to man the American space-Lightship. Everyone celebrates the news that with the extra fuel Fogey has, they can reach Earth but not, to J-5's dismay, his planet. J-5 gets the Zaybo and puts it in the room where Smith is drinking champagne.

The Zaybo, now a seductive woman, promises Smith riches and favors if he helps J-5 reach his planet. J-5 is, with Smith's help, planning to steal the ship. Penny finds Smith and J-5 while Will stumbles across the Zaybo. Penny breaks loose, and J-5 follows her. She realizes the Zaybo is only a product of J-5's imagination. Meanwhile John is planning to abandon the lightship, but J-5 saves the vessel. Fogey now confesses there is no spare fuel for their return to Earth, so John arranges for J-5 to stay with Fogey as his companion-mechanic until his relief arrives and the Jupiter 2 takes off.

Ray Dutczak Comment

I myself was never a big fan of The Haunted Lighthouse but have learned to like it a little more through the years. I never really enjoyed the J5 character but I did enjoy the Colonal Fogey character which was played by Woodrow Parfrey. Pluses in this episode are the Freeze Frame shot in the beginning of the episode when John Robinson encounters the Zaybo. Other then that this was an ok episode for me. Key note both Lou Wagner and Woodrow Parfrey would guest star on the Planet Of The Apes.

Filming