Developed by Anthony Wilson No. of episodes 14 | Country of origin United States Executive producer(s) Herbert Hirschman | |
Starring Roddy McDowall
Ron Harper
James Naughton
Mark Lenard Composer(s) Lalo Schifrin
Earle Hagen
Richard LaSalle | ||
Planet of the Apes is an American science fiction television series that aired on CBS in 1974. The series stars Roddy McDowall, Ron Harper, James Naughton, Mark Lenard and Booth Colman. It is based on the 1968 Planet of the Apes film and its sequels, which were inspired by the novel "Planet of the Apes" by Pierre Boulle.
Contents
Overview
The series begins with the crash of an Earth spaceship that encountered a time warp while approaching Alpha Centauri on August 19, 1980. The spaceship is manned by three astronauts, one of whom has died in the crash. The other two astronauts, Colonel Alan Virdon and Major Peter J. Burke, are unconscious but are rescued by a human who carries them to an old bomb shelter. After the human opens a book containing historical text and pictures of Earth circa 2500, the two astronauts are convinced that they are indeed on a future Earth.
The crash is also witnessed by a young chimpanzee who tells his father, a village official who alerts the authorities. Ape counselor Zaius (an analog of the character from the original movie), notes that another such incident occurred ten years earlier. He orders the head gorilla, Security Chief Urko, to find the humans and bring them back alive. Zaius wants to find out as much as he can about the humans before they are eventually killed. Zaius doesn't trust Urko to follow his orders and bring back any surviving humans, so he sends along his newly hired chimpanzee assistant, Galen.
Both Virdon and Burke go back to their ship to check the ship's chronometer. They are more than 1000 years in the future from when they left Earth. Virdon insists on retrieving the ship's flight log in the hopes that they will be able to analyze it and be able to return to their own time period, but while they are at the ship, they are captured, and the old man is subsequently killed by a group of apes.
Galen finds the human book that the old man had been carrying. He reads parts of the book and begins to doubt the history that he has been told: apes have always been dominant, and humans have always been inferior and subservient. When Galen finds out that Urko has arranged for the two astronauts to escape and be killed in the attempt, he stops the shooter and helps the humans escape. During the escape, a guard is killed, and Galen is found standing over him with a gun in his hand.
Galen discusses the book that he found with Zaius, who then accuses him of heresy. Galen is sentenced to death for his crime. Then Virdon and Burke find out about his sentence and rescue Galen. They are all then declared enemies of the state and become fugitives. The three fugitives wander around the territory that used to be the western United States having various encounters with apes, humans, and old human civilization ruins.
Cast
Production
Discussions for a Planet of the Apes television series were made by producer Arthur P. Jacobs as early as 1971. Because of the success of the films, the idea of a television series was put on hold until after the completion of Battle for the Planet of the Apes in the first half of 1973. However, shortly after the premiere of Battle, Jacobs died, and his production company APJAC Productions sold all Planet of the Apes rights and privileges to 20th Century Fox. Subsequently, television rights for the first three Planet of the Apes films were sold to CBS and aired successfully in September 1973. Based largely on high viewership of "movie-of-the-week" TV broadcasts of the first few films, CBS began to focus away from other contenders for a new science-fiction series, including Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II (1973) and look solely at the prospects for an Apes TV series. Fox and CBS went on to continue Jacob's plans of a series the following year.
CBS ordered 14 episodes of Planet of the Apes to be produced. The series was filmed for the most part on location at what is now Malibu Creek State Park, with a budget of about $250,000 for each episode. Originally slated to air during CBS's Tuesday night family hour, the first regular episode of the series aired on Friday, September 13, 1974 from 8:00-9:00 PM. The remainder of the series aired in this same time slot until December 27, 1974, when its thirteenth and final broadcast was shown as a result of a premature cancellation of the series due to low ratings.
Music
The series' main theme was composed by Lalo Schifrin; Schifrin also scored three episodes of the series - "Escape From Tomorrow," "The Gladiators" and "The Good Seeds" (the latter, though not the premiere episode, was the first to be scored). Earle Hagen composed the scores for "The Legacy" and "Tomorrow's Tide," while Richard LaSalle wrote an original score for "The Trap." In addition, three episodes received partial scores - Hagen composed one for "The Surgeon," LaSalle handled "The Deception," and music supervisor Lionel Newman composed his only music for the series with "The Interrogation" (those last three, like the other episodes, were otherwise tracked with the previously written music).
Intrada album
In 2005, Intrada released an album featuring Lalo Schifrin's opening and closing music along with all three of Schifrin's scores and Earle Hagen's "The Legacy." The album also includes the logo music for Twentieth Century-Fox Television by Alfred Newman.
La-La Land album
In 2015, La-La Land Records issued a remastered and expanded limited edition album, featuring all six original scores plus the Newman material.
Disc 1: Music by Lalo Schifrin
Disc 2: Theme by Lalo Schifrin, Music by Richard LaSalle, Earle Hagen and Lionel Newman
Unfilmed episodes
The scripts for "Episode One", "Episode Two", "Hostage" and "A Fallen God" are available online at Hunter's Planet of the Apes Archive. Details regarding "The Trek," "Freedom Road," "The Mine," and "The Trial" were provided in issue 12 of Simian Scrolls (a Planet of the Apes-based magazine), reprinted from the TV series writer's bible.
Broadcast history
The series ran in the U.S. from September 13 to December 20, 1974. The series was canceled after half a season because of low ratings due to direct competition by NBC's Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man. Only thirteen of its fourteen episodes were broadcast; all 14 episodes were later included in the DVD box set. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel.
It was screened in Britain by 13 of the 14 ITV companies from 13 October 1974 each Sunday, until 18 January 1975. STV never screened the series in 1974/75, opting to broadcast Sale of the Century instead. The series was repeated in many regions from September 1975 until 1978, but was still not seen on STV. The series then received its first UK-wide transmissions on Channel 4 in 1994, and later on the Sci Fi Channel. The TV movie compilations have also been screened on Sky Movies and Horror Channel.
Telefilms
In 1980, several episodes of the series were edited into five made-for-television movies.
When the Planet of the Apes telefilms entered syndication, ABC's owned and operated stations, who picked them up for their afternoon movie programs (under titles such as The 4:30 Movie), called upon Roddy McDowall to re-create his role of Galen in a series of new openings and closings specifically for these stations, billed as "The New Planet of the Apes." The introductions originally created by 20th Century Fox to open each film were replaced by a now-aged Galen (McDowall) looking back on the events of the telefilms. The openings and closings revealed Virdon and Burke's final fates: "They found their computer in another city and disappeared into space as suddenly as they’d arrived." According to "TV Zone Special #17" (1995 issue) McDowall filmed these "two years after the demise of the first run episodes of the Planet of the Apes television series", which would be December, 1976. The ABC openings and closings of these telefilms were neither aired on other stations nor included on any home media release.
Spinoffs
Most of the books and comics based on Planet of the Apes are based on the films, not the TV series. However, there are some titles that do involve the TV show characters:
Novelizations—Four novelizations of episodes, written by George Alec Effinger, were published by Award Books. Their titles are:
British Annuals—Brown-Watson Books published three hardcover annuals featuring original stories about Virdon, Burke and Galen. These stories are a combination of comic strips and short fiction.
Audio Adventures—Power Records produced four audio-only adventures based on the TV show. Their titles were:
Argentine Comics—Seven Spanish-language comics were published in Argentina, written by Jorge Claudio Morhain and Richard Barreiro, and illustrated by Sergio Mulko and T. Toledo. Released only in Argentina, they have never been officially published in English. However, PDFs of the comics, translated to English by fans, are available at Kassidy Rae's site. (See link below.)
Filmstrip Story—Chad Valley, a U.K. toy company, produced 32 short film-based comic strips containing an original TV-series-era story, packaged as the Chad Valley Picture Show Planet of the Apes Sliderama Projector (very similar to the many Give-a-Show projector sets of the 1970s). These strips are extremely rare and difficult to come by.