I started building dioramas of scenes from Lost in Space in 2020. They range in scale from 1/6th scale, with figures 12" tall, down to 1/144th scale, with the figures only 1/2" tall. Some models were used in the dioramas, but they are mostly scratch built using materials and techniques used in model railroad construction. Since some of the 83 episodes have more than one diorama, the total so far is 109 built over the last 4 years. Among those in different scales there are 27 alien spaceships, 14 chariots, and 18 Jupiter 2's. Also there are 45 Dr. Smiths, 35 Wills, and 25 robots, which seem to track with the popularity of them on the show. Gary Stair 3D printed many the incredible Robinson figures for me. His 3D printed figures are in 70 of the 110 dioramas that I made so far.
The pilot episode, No Place to Hide, was where it all started. It set the tone for the action adventure series to follow. This scene with the two aliens watching is the only scene that makes this diorama identifiable as being from the pilot since the rest of the pilot was mostly incorporated into the first five series episodes. I first saw these aliens in the summer of 1965 in the promos for the series, and as I watched each episode that fall I kept waiting to see them in the episode until the reruns started and knew I wouldn't see them and that they were just there as a teaser for the pilot and no story was written for them. I liked building this diorama because I could make it a little more realistic since the scene was filmed outside with hills, pond, and real plants and not on the flat surface of a studio stage. However it wasn't a real location shot since it was filmed at the studio moat with it's artificial rocks. Gary Stair made the figures for me and since the aliens were never seen in color I just used their look from the colorized version of the pilot. I included some progress shots of building the diorama, starting with styrofoam, covered with paper mache, paint, and ground cover and trees made for model railroaders. I made some of the plants from scratch to look like the plants on the set.