Forgotten Television: Planet of the Apes 1974

It is hard to think of Planet of the Apes as “forgotten” when there were so many movies and a couple of reboots. But how many people remember that there was a short-lived television series? Three 1980s astronauts go through a time warp and crash land back on Earth where the year is 3085 and mankind is slaves to the Ape overlords.  When Councilor Zaius learns of this, he is one of the few in their time that know the truth about humans and believes that free thinking men would become a disruptive influence on the status quo and that the humans of 3085 would learn the truth and rise up against them. One Ape, Galen (Roddy McDowall) becomes curious, and although incredulous at first that any humans could be smart enough to build machines more advanced than what Apes can build, he eventually learns the truth. Astronauts, Colonel Alan Virdon (Ron Harper) and Major Peter J. Burke (James Naughton) with Galen’s help escape their captivity and go on a quest to find technologically advanced humans who may be able to find a way to reverse the time warp and get them home.  They are hunted by Security Chief Urko (Mark Lenard, Sarek, Star Trek).  Weekly the trio must avoid capture and help the other humans as they try to fulfil their quest.

Placing the series in 3085, about 900 years before the original Planet of the Apes movie which takes place in 3955 allows for a similar looking world as the source material, but where the human subjugation isn’t quite as brutal and it allows for the humans of the time the power of speech, which they will lose between 3085 and 3955.  Chronoglogically the series takes place 300 years after the movie Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The series did have some inconsistencies that don’t fit into the timeline.  One major one is that in the pilot, a dog is in the beginning scene, but dogs and cats were wiped out by a plague in 1983, which is what leads to the domestication and eventual evolution of the apes. I guess it could be argued that between 1985 and 3085, a pack of dogs hidden in some non-populated corner of the planet, was discovered and canines were brought back from the brink of extinction, but most people just think it is a blooper and that the series writers just forgot about the continuity. The makeup for the show was very well done, building off of the success of the movies, but other than that, the series was probably restrained by budget. The series ran for fourteen episodes on CBS from September 13 to December 20, 1974.

Some shows based on popular movies don’t get the casting right.  Usually there is something forced, with the lead trying to emulate the original stars, thankfully this series did not do that.  First, they got the original star of the films, Roddy McDowall, to play a brand new, but somewhat familiar character.  Roddy’s performance in both the movies and the television series is iconic and definitely top notch. He spent upwards of 50 hours a week in makeup and his face was insured for $100000.  In addition to Roddy, the series didn’t try to cast a “Charlton Heston” character and instead cast Ron Harper and James Naughton as kinder less misanthropic humans, that still had hope for the human race. Both actors played their parts very well.  Rounding out the cast was Mark Lenard, best known for playing Sarek, Spock’s father, in the Star Trek franchise as the aggressive adversary hunting them down.  The series didn’t really cover the sociopolitical themes of the movies and was more of a pure action-adventure story.  The problem with the series, and most sci-fi series of the 70s, is that the plot for each episode became repetitious, with each week being basically like the week before.  Where the series was fun at first, it quickly becomes mundane and there were a lot of missed opportunities that could have been exploited.