While it might sound glib to say the phrase "bubble headed booby" has now taken on a whole new meaning, it is certain that the announcement puts the reboot well and truly on the Hollywood radar.

The production company Legendary TV is developing a new version of the 1960s-era sci-fi classic created by Irwin Allen, whose other histrionic masterpieces included Land of the Giants and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

The reboot of Lost in Space will air in 2018.

But the announcement of Posey in the role of Dr Smith is generating buzz more than a year out from its earliest possible premiere date.

In the original series Dr Smith, played by Jonathan Harris, was initially a saboteur working for a foreign government whose attempt to destroy the Jupiter II space colonisation project ended up with him stranded on board during takeoff.

That twist gave the original pilot episode its title: The Reluctant Stowaway.

In the show's second and third season, where the emphasis shifted from dark science fiction to colour and camp, Dr Smith became a doomsayer and habitual complainer, constantly bickering with the ship's iconic B-9 "environmental" robot.

Among his catch-phrases: "bubble-headed booby", "cowardly clump", "ninny", "computerised clod" and his old favourite, typically said taking refuge on a nearby rock from an exhausting hike on an alien planet, "Oh, the pain."

While it is certain that the reboot will adhere more to the darker tone of the earlier episodes, the decision to re-cast a male character with a female actor is not new.

The 2004 reboot of Battlestar: Galactica gender-flipped two of the original series male characters Starbuck and Boomer into women with Katee Sackhoff and Grace Kim taking on characters originally played by Dirk Benedict and Herbert Jefferson Jnr.

The 1970s action series Hawaii Five-0's Kono became Kona for its 2010 reboot, and Elementary, the US series based on the Sherlock Holmes novels, features Lucy Liu as a female Watson.

And an honourable mention here: in an episode of Will & Grace, Grace (Debra Messing) made reference to her mother starring as Millie Loman in a stage production of Death of a Saleslady.

More recently the Hollywood studio Sony rebooted its Ghostbusters franchise with an all-girl cast. And the cinema giant Marvel also has plans for a female Captain Marvel film.

But the gender-flip doesn't always win fans.

Sony was loudly criticised by sections of the commentariat for their decision to recast Ghostbusters with girls, though that chorus was mostly silenced by the fact that the film went on to gross almost a quarter of a billion dollars.

The Telegraph's Tom Fordy in 2014 declared such gender-bending to be "stunt casting to generate column inches."

"Like those debates, presumably stirred up by the BBC's press office, about whether or not the next Doctor Who should be a woman whenever regeneration time comes around," he added.