DANGER, Will Robinson! COSMIC ENERGY AHEAD!!!

A few days before Halloween, 1965, Irwin Allen brought to the TV screens of America a strangely wondrous allegorical tale -- the story of an 11 year-old girl's journey of sexual self-discovery, loss of innocence, struggle against Jungian archetypes, pedophilic rape, and the punative destructive forces unleashed when childhood sexual energy is misappropriated for the pleasure of greedy adults.

The series was Lost in Space, the epoisode, My Friend, Mr. Nobody, only the seventh to air in the then new television series.

When pre-teen space castaway Penny Robinson's attempts at garnering her father's attention go awry, incurring instead only his displeasure, she wanders off despondently, but soon comes across a secret, hidden, seemingly magical valley.  Here everything seems more alive--is more alive!  Here the very waters spout up playfully from their depths to tease her as-yet-un-kissed lips as she kneels to great them.

Exploring further, following the sound of her own voice as it echoes back and forth within an undiscovered crevasse, Penny's fingertips absentmindedly brush across a boulder just inside those rocky folds.  The stone moves, springing to life upon her gentle touch, and reveals the entrance to a strange cavern, dark and moist.  Attracted by by an overwhelming compulsion she is soon overcome, drawn into the gaping passage by unknown forces that seem to be beyond her control.  She is at once frightened, astonished, scared, fearful, excited, ashamed and amazed.

Penny returns to camp hours later with a new spring in her step, a knowing smile and...
a secret!
 
Penny tells her mother of her new "secret friend" whose deep dark cave only she "with just a single finger" has special access to, a "wonderful marvelous place" that no one else can understand.

Penny Bop.  She-bop a-way bop.

The first time she was frightened.  She ran away.

But the next day finds her once again at the mouth of the chasm, touching the magic gatekeeper stone, seeking entry to the deep dark mysterious cave and the wonders of its secret friend.

It will quickly become obvious to even the most inattentive viewer at this point that Penny's "secret friend" is the personified embodiment of what Wilhem Reich would have labeled her newly awakened "orgone energies". And the more she explores these secret, most personal of realms, the more powerful and responsive the growing, self-generated energy becomes.

Seen from this aspect the tale as it progresses from here takes on a sinister tone.  Dr. Zachary Smith -- a well known pederast -- soon turns his lustful eyes to the treasures hidden in her secret caverns.  Although she refuses his advances, wishing the share her secret place with none but herself, Smith undeterred quickly turns to stealth and subterfuge in an attempt to locate the entry to her most secret of places.  His access is once again denied -- until he finds the back door to her hidden cavern. 

Mr. Smith Goes to Town

Too tight to allow him the entry he desires (at one point his head, none to subtly, becoming stuck in this darker secondary cleft) and driven mad by desire for the jewels of her secret cave, Smith hatches a convoluted scheme which quite literally blows the young girl's dank hidden back passage wide open!

In a frightening scene enhanced with a tremendous score by the then "Johnny" Williams (yes, that Johnny Williams) the full fury of her overwhelming pubescent orgone energies, now suddenly unleashed, become an unstoppable force raining a storm of destruction down from the heavens, threatening to destroy the whole family unit.  

Such transparent references to preteen masturbation and pederasty as seen here may seem shocking for 1965 -- especially when viewed from our 21st century perspective.  But this is only because we underestimate the mind's ability to deny recognizing what it does not wish to see and the power that a thin veil of analogy can have in hiding obvious truths from those unwilling to see them.

Watch My Friend, Mr. Nobody in its entirety HERE.

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