Niolani

" I know that Niolani was my all time favorite role"  Francine York

Appears in the "Lost in space" Tv show episode entitled "the colonists".

All the Robinsons work to ready the new relay stations, when a crazy sound-wave irritates them and causes the relay stations to explode! Now all methods of communication are impossible.

John figures that it was some kind of calculated alien plan of destruction. Don and Doctor Smith investigate and are spoken to by a female voice, which orders them back to the Jupiter 2, informing them that they are now prisoners.

Will and the Robot are in fact quite a ways away, investigating on their own. They see a strange force-field fence has been set up, and notice a large cave. When they go in to look around, they find a great deal of alien electronic equipment. Figuring that this still was the cause of the sound that damaged their relay stations, Will attempts to destroy it. He is not successful, and he and the Robot end up captured by Noble Niolani a female warrior and her servants.

Back at the Jupiter 2, John and Maureen’s worries increase when Niolani appears to tell them she has captured their children and their Robot. She forces them to hand over their weapons and come with her, or else she will kill them all. Niolani explains that she is making them slaves and that they are to build a large electronic arch. Her people are coming to colonize their planet, but they cannot breathe the planet’s air until the pass through the purification arch. She says the Robinsons must finish before her people arrive, or else they will be executed.

As it turns out, only the men are put to work. Maureen, Penny and Judy are taken elsewhere where they are doted on and treated rather nicely. John and Don are determined to find a way to escape. They try to trick the guards into lowering the force-field. They try to attack the guards and fight their way out. They try to damage Niolani’s equipment. Nothing works, and Niolani loses her patience and says if they act up again she will kill them.

Smith paints up the arch all pretty and Niolani takes a liking to him, thinking he is artistic and sensitive. She takes him into her cave and makes him her consort. Smith enjoys this because it means he doesn’t have to work and gets to boss the other men around.

Will and the Robot hatch a plan which proves to be very clever. They make sculptures out of plastic explosives and pass them off as some of Doctor Smith’s artwork. The sculptures are placed on the finished arch, and just as Niolani’s warriors are about to land, Will presses the detonator and blows up the arch!

Now unable to live in a colony on the planet, the female warrior’s ship departs before it ever lands. Niolani realizes she has failed in her mission, and she leaves in disgrace.