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"It can be argued that Planet of the Apes is the 'Police Academy' of the science fiction world. The first movie was popular, though it was hardly worth the nearly half a dozen sequels it received, and its own television series."

---from the article

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It can be argued that Planet of the Apes is the "Police Academy" of the science fiction world. The first movie was popular, though it was hardly worth the nearly half a dozen sequels it received, and its own television series. That's what happened for Police Academy, and yes, Planet of the Apes. I suppose a simian with the voice of Roddy McDowall is interesting and all, and yet...come on. A television series? Every single week? Someone must've really liked humans dressed as apes.


People who know the full story of the movies might wonder what they did to make a series even possible. Mild spoilers of a classic sci-fi story notwithstanding: the Earth blew up in the second movie. That's not good for the start of a weekly series. So a completely different spaceship crash lands on an (apparently) completely different 3085 Earth, which is now a completely different Planet of the Apes. Nobody's looking to blow anybody up. Some Apes just want to apprehend the humans; that's all. It's like The Fugitive...except not really, because there was no way these humans would "prove" they were innocent. They were humans, they weren't apes, and they were always going to be running.

It didn't help that a TV series always meant a lower budget in the 1970's. That meant no cool Statue of Liberty in the sand, to show they are on Earth. Instead, they find an old book that says boringly, and in so many words, "You're on Earth. Deal with it." So much for excessive budget...or much excitement, for that matter.

It's not like the series didn't have a few "pros." They just didn't outnumber the many cons. Among the pros was an intriguing story arc implying that theirs was in fact the second such ship to come from the past. What happened then, and where are they now? This added mystery was perhaps the best reason this series lasted 14 episodes and not just 7. Equally wise was in making two surviving astronauts, and not just one, so some poor Charlton Heston wannabe wasn't just left alone talking to men in simian makeup. Yet in the end, both astronauts were on a planet of apes with nothing really to strive for...so why watch?

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