LOS ANGELES -- More than 50 years after it appeared on U.S. television, science-fiction family drama "Lost in Space" is getting new life as a series on Netflix and will offer a break from the dystopian fare popular among futuristic shows today, the show's star Toby Stephens said.

"There's great TV around but a lot of it is really depressing," Stephens told Reuters at the series premiere in Los Angeles ahead of its Friday release.

"What's great about this show is that it's very aspirational. ... it also has this positive message about family and humanity, which I think we need at the moment," said the British actor best known for playing a James Bond villain in 2002's "Die Another Day."

Stephens plays family patriarch John Robinson, commander of the spaceship Jupiter 2, which crashes on an unknown planet light years away from Earth.

The year is 2046 and the Robinson family and other Jupiter 2 passengers encounter an alien environment.

Like the 1965 series, "Lost in Space" is based loosely on Johann David Wyss' 1812 adventure novel "The Swiss Family Robinson." The series also keeps the popular catchphrase "Danger, Will Robinson," the robot warning given to the youngest of the Robinson clan.

The 10-episode first season reworks some characters' back stories and family relationships and the scheming Dr. Smith is now a woman, played by Parker Posey.

"There is definitely a different dynamic," said Mina Sundwall, who plays daughter Penny Robinson. "We're very complicated, we're very messy. You see marriage problems between John and (wife) Maureen.

"We're also a mixed family and we have (sister) Judy from another marriage of Maureen's, which I think brings another ... dynamic between them," Sundwall said.