Life, Liberty and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes

I've never watched the short-lived '70s TV series of PLANET OF THE APES that they made, but on the strength of this, I'm glad I didn't bother. LIFE, LIBERTY AND PURSUIT ON THE PLANET OF THE APES is a crummy title for a crummy TV movie, one that's stitched together two random episodes of the TV show in a bid to make more cash for the money-grubbing producers.

The two episodes have nothing in common, making this disjointed. It's also extremely boring. The quality of the writing is very poor, the characters are dull, and both episodes seem to be completely sub-standard in every respect. There's no intrigue here, no action, no suspense, just bored cast members working at a strictly amateur level. It's just awful.

Life, Liberty and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes is the fourth TV movie made from combining episodes of the TV series 'Planet of the Apes together. In this case it was the instalments 'The Surgeon' and 'The Interrogation' that were used. It opens with one of the human protagonists already shot and then being smuggled into an ape hospital for treatment. The second half has the other main character captured and made the victim of brainwashing techniques by the apes.

Both parts are linked I guess by their plots being underpinned by the finding of ancient human books. In the former it's an anatomy reference book and in the latter a book about brainwashing procedures. But other than this, the episodes are as clunkily combined as all the others. In fact, I would say that this one is in a tie with the final film Farewell to the Planet of the Apes as the absolute worst. Not that the others are exactly stellar by comparison you understand. I think the films sort of make you realise why the series was so unsuccessful and was cancelled. While the ape characters are quite interesting, the human ones are poorly conceived and rather dull. These two episodes are also damaged by having particularly unexciting story lines. At least some of the earlier films had a bit more tension and thrills in them.

The complete Planet of the Apes TV series is now on DVD, but there was a time when that was not the case. Liberty, and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes is one of five TV movies that were made by editing together episodes of the Planet of the Apes TV series. They had a great cast which included Ron Harper, James Naughton, Booth Colman, Mark Lenard as Urko and Roddy McDowall as Galen. McDowall said in interviews that Galen was his favorite Planet of the Apes role, and he is my favorite character of the entire franchise as well. Life, Liberty, and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes is made up of the TV episodes The Surgeon and The Interrogation, and McDowall really shines as Galen in both of them. In the early 1980's the Apes TV movies were the only way that one could see the long canceled Planet of the Apes TV series, and I really enjoyed them.