Planet of the Apes

I loved watching this show on Friday night as a teenager. It lacked the action of the feature films, but was nonetheless interesting fare. Ron Harper and James Naughton had good on-screen chemistry with always-great Roddy McDowell. This show could have had a good run with a better time slot and run later in the night so more violence could be featured. This was a great cast that should have been given more than 14 episodes to show their stuff.

At the beginning of a new century, this series remains one of the finest shows ever produced for television. It's academic appeal, combined with it's superior scriptwriting, easily resulted in a classic work of art. Although action packed, the screenwriters always assumed that the audience had a high degree of intelligence. Typically, this show was cancelled after only 13 episodes. A sad comment on our society, who allowed FULL HOUSE to run over 12 years.

The television series of The Planet Of The Apes is not as good as the films, but is still worth a watch.It lacks the originality of the films. The series is set 893 years before the original film and it seems that in this time humans can talk, this means that over the next 893 years humans lose the power of speech and become more wild. One thing i did notice, though, is that dogs are alive...Now this is impossible considering the movie fact that dogs(along with cats) died out, thus opening up the way for apes to become pets, and eventually servants, and soon became intelligent like humans.This series of Planet Of The Apes was released on video in two limited edition box sets in Australia. I now own all five films and all thirteen episodes on video.I am now eagerly awaiting the release of Return To The Planet Of The Apes (the animated series) on video. I am also looking for the Behind The Scenes Video about the films.

The series is kind of like Starsky and Hutch meets Planet of the Apes. Two astronauts end up on earth in the future (I hope this does not count as a spoiler) and befriend a chimpanzee. One of the astronauts is the young wise cracking guy, the other one the more serious and considerate older guy. This means of course that the overall feeling of doom which the films had is not really present here. The sets are quite decent as is the make up which is of course because they used sets and props from the films. Overall, it's actually fairly entertaining and well made, certainly much better than the last two installments of the film franchise. However, there is a limit as to how far you can stretch the underlying storyline and therefore it tends to be a bit repetitive. There is only so much you can do with one idea. But by and large it's well made entertainment, worth watching.

This was a great show. Too bad the networks didn't allow this show to play out. If it had I would have loved to have seen how the characters would have developed as well as what the characters would have found in their travels. Also, this was my first exposure to Roddy McDowell, who was one of the most reliable actors in the history of film. Even though he took a lot of criticism for playing in both the films and the television series, he brought a lot of depth to the character of Galen.