Lost in Space

"Lost in Space" is the eighteenth episode of the ninth season of American Dad!. The episode aired on May 5, 2013, on Fox's Animation Domination lineup. The episode was written by series co-creator Mike Barker and directed by series regular Chris Bennett. "Lost in Space" was promoted as episode 150 by Fox and numerous mainstream media reports; it is actually episode 151, while the episode "The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith" is episode 150. "Lost in Space" continues a plot line established in the episode "Naked to the Limit, One More Time." In addition, several of the episodes that aired in between "Naked to the Limit, One More Time" and "Lost in Space" contribute to the plot line in question. Not to be confused with Roger's birth planet (Fox has misreported this episode as the revealing of this), the setting of "Lost in Space" is simply a spaceship owned by members of Roger's alien race. The episode centers around Jeff Fischer's attempts to escape a slave spaceship full of aliens (the slave-owning aliens of which are Roger's race) that he was suddenly shoved onto by Roger in "Naked to the Limit, One More Time". In "Lost in Space," Jeff endeavors to prove to slave-owning aliens the legitimacy of his love for wife Hayley Smith in order to escape the spaceship. "Lost in Space" is unconventional in that Jeff is, for the most part, the only main character from the show to appear, although Roger and Hayley have brief cameo appearances, and the rest of the family makes a brief appearance together in the beginning recap. The episode received positive reviews from television critics, with praise directed to the visual style and humor. Plot Jeff is unconscious, hanging from a ceiling in a solitary confinement. An alien named Foster enters and awakens Jeff. Foster reveals himself as the head of Emperor Zing's security team. Emperor Zing, Foster, the rest of his security team, along with half the residents of the spaceship belong to Roger's race of aliens. They are the slave owners on the spaceship. The rest of the aliens populating the ship are miscellaneous races of aliens that have been abducted from their respective home planets and are being used as slaves. Being toured around the spaceship, Jeff learns that it is a bizarre shopping mall-like facility. Foster sends Jeff to work at a shawarma food stand, where Jeff encounters Sinbad (the only other human on the spaceship), who had been abducted two months prior.