El planeta de los simios

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.

PLANET OF THE APES was a show that stressed dialouge over brawn; Talk over heft and firepower. The tv show was big on words and had some good art direction yet alas, only lasted 14 episodes. The series featured creative people who worked on STAR TREK and had a quality to it seen prominently in the episode about the prison fishermen. The show at times had a flair of genius in production values and props. PLANET OF THE APES was a genre show in a era before big syndicated sci fi had found a market (except SPACE 1999). The series as a whole was not bad but it was not all it could have been either. There were questions raised in the films left unexplored that could have been delved into by the series. I recommend the DVD set to serious fans.

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.

The Planet of the Apes movies interested me very much as a young child. I was (and still am) very into the monster/sci-fi genre.

When this series came out, my friends and I would always be tuned in. In the special "Behind the Planet of the Apes" it references this series as being 13 shows long. It also mentions that the show was up against 2 very popular TV sitcoms at the time, Sanford & Son and Chico & the Man. I wasn't a fan of either of these other shows so I guess I was in the minority in watching "Apes".

I remember commenting back around that time that the Planet of the Apes TV series looked like Starsky and Hutch vs the apes and I still feel that way when I see clips of the old ape TV show. The 2 human stars bear an uncanny resemblance to the 2 stars of the popular 70s TV cop show (which came out in 1975). There was much merchandising back then, and we collected ape trading cards and ape dolls. I also had the ape model kits. I remember getting a few of the dolls for Christmas but the "ape house" set that came with it was too expensive and a neighbor kid had got that so we 'combined' the items for play.

In 1981 the ape TV shows were combined and renamed "Return to the Planet of the Apes" among other titles.

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.