"I'm not a great science fiction fan myself. I probably feel that way about Westerns. Like I used to play Cowboys and Indians, they can act out Will and the Robot"
About this Quote
There is a sly, almost throwaway honesty in Goddard admitting he is not a science fiction fan while standing as a recognizable face from one of TV sci-fi's most iconic families. Instead of performing reverence for the genre, he shrugs and reframes it as play. That pivot matters: he is not insulting science fiction so much as locating its real job in popular culture - not intellectual futurism, but a sandbox for make-believe.
The comparison to Westerns is especially telling. Westerns were once the default American myth machine: clear heroes, clear villains, costumes you could improvise with a hat and a stick. Goddard suggests sci-fi, in a television era of mass merchandising and family viewing, simply swapped out the props. Kids who "used to play Cowboys and Indians" can now "act out Will and the Robot". The subtext is that genre loyalty is less important than the durable ritual of imitation. Fandom begins as rehearsal.
Context sharpens the line: Goddard played Major Don West on Lost in Space, a show that marketed adventure as domestic entertainment. When he talks about children acting out Will and the Robot, he is describing the real metric of success for that kind of TV: whether characters become toys in the cultural imagination. It's also a quietly generational read. If Westerns were his childhood, sci-fi is the next cohort's. He is watching myth update itself, and he sounds both slightly detached and faintly impressed.
The comparison to Westerns is especially telling. Westerns were once the default American myth machine: clear heroes, clear villains, costumes you could improvise with a hat and a stick. Goddard suggests sci-fi, in a television era of mass merchandising and family viewing, simply swapped out the props. Kids who "used to play Cowboys and Indians" can now "act out Will and the Robot". The subtext is that genre loyalty is less important than the durable ritual of imitation. Fandom begins as rehearsal.
Context sharpens the line: Goddard played Major Don West on Lost in Space, a show that marketed adventure as domestic entertainment. When he talks about children acting out Will and the Robot, he is describing the real metric of success for that kind of TV: whether characters become toys in the cultural imagination. It's also a quietly generational read. If Westerns were his childhood, sci-fi is the next cohort's. He is watching myth update itself, and he sounds both slightly detached and faintly impressed.
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