ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

Original Air Date: September 13, 1974

Written By: Art Wallace

Directed By: Don Weis

Have you ever been lying on the ground taking a nap, minding your own business, when a punk kid runs up with his dog and forces you to climb a tree to avoid harm? And then, while you’re in the tree, has a big arrowhead shaped spaceship ever come crashing down right before your eyes? No? Then you’ve obviously never been on…THE PLANET OF THE APES!!!

Once the sound of the crashing space-triangle has scared away the punk kid and his dog (the punk kid was a talking chimpanzee omg!!), the old napping man comes scuttling out of his tree to investigate. He pokes around outside the rocketship, getting it to open almost immediately and, as you or I would do with a mysterious, possibly hostile capsule from beyond the stars, he climbs right inside and starts poking around some more.

Inside the capsule he finds three NASA astronauts from that year of bustling interstellar travel, 1980, ranging in style from unconscious with dark hair to dead and blond. He manages to drag the two surviving spacemen out of sight just as Arno, the punk ape kid, returns to investigate with a couple of punk ape adults. The apes, being foul, feces-flinging liars who are not to be trusted, are anxious to keep the discovery of the rocket a secret. As one chimpanzee says: “It’s dangerous. Humans know their places. That mustn’t change. If they were to find out that other humans could build and fly a machine like this, they’d begin to think they’re as good as we are.” Safe in our own comfortable homes, we already know we’re much better than a bunch of fey, tunic and feety-pajama wearing monkeys, but such is the topsy-turvy world of…THE PLANET OF THE APES!!!

As the apes launch a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse for the humans that belong in the rocket’s two empty seats, those very same astronauts are finally coming to back in the old man’s secret cave. They discuss what’s happened to bring them here—they were approaching alpha centauri when they experienced radioactive turbulence, duh—and the old man, Farrow, tells them to watch out for apes. “Apes?” they ask. That’s right, homeboys, did we forget to tell you you’re on a little thing called…THE PLANET OF THE APES?!!!

Our spaceman pals are Pete Burke, he of the dark hair and sassy attitude, and Alan Virdon, the towheaded leader. After trying to guess just where in the universe they might have turned up, they decide to recklessly ignore everything the odd, bedraggled stranger told them and go outside for a look around. Big mistake.

Onward came the gorillas, galloping after Burke and Virdon on horseback while shooting at them with their ape-guns. The astronauts run for cover, shocked by what they’ve seen. “Those were apes, weren’t they?” Burke asks. “What kind of planet is this?” Oh, Mr. Burke, don’t you know it’s…THE PLANET OF THE APES?!!!

As Burke and Virdon try to accept what they’ve just seen, Farrow explains how things work on this planet: apes are in charge, humans are nothing, and watch out because the apes will totally kill you. He also shows them an ancient book he just happens to have, which features pictures of New York in the year 2503. And so the astronauts learn that they can’t go home, that they’re already on Earth in its distant future. If you were expecting some screaming and loincloths in front of a razed statue of liberty, sorry. What you get is two dudes looking at a book and going, “aww, dang.”

Now it’s time to meet some apes, specifically Chief Councilor  Zaius, an orangutan; his chimpanzee assistant, Galen; and Urko, the gorilla in charge of security. While Galen finds the prospect of unusually intelligent humans an interesting one, the perpetually pissed off Urko just wants them dead and dead right now. Fortunately for our heroes, however, Zaius has the final word on the matter and he wants the astronauts brought back alive. He wants to question them, learn all he can from them, and then go ahead and let Urko kill them in as violent a way as he sees fit. Okay, maybe it’s not so fortunate.

An ape-chase ensues. Farrow is shot and killed, Burke and Virdon are aprehended by Urko and his comically bulbous hat. The astronauts are brought back to the central city where their subversive ideas—that all intelligent creatures should learn to live and work as equals—are under debate. And by “under debate” I mean Virdon says that and Urko gets pissed off (more than his default level, that is) and throws a grenade. He claims to be making some kind of vague point, but I think he just likes to throw grenades.

The astronauts are taken to a cell and locked in. Captivity not being enough to satisfy Urko’s bloodlust, he conspires with a gorilla friend to secretly have the two humans killed under cover of night, in direct violation of Zaius’ orders. Unaware of all this, Virdon and Burke form a plan. If they can get back to their ship, they can pull the flight data recorder or whatever. From there, it’ll be a simple matter of building a computer, finding out what happened during the spaceflight, building a spaceship, and flying it back home doing whatever they did before, only backward. Piece of cake!

Later that night, Galen comes to talk to the prisoners about the world they come from just as Urko’s ill-conceived murder plan is being put into action (”leave their cell door unlocked, then when they escape maybe somebody will shoot them or something”). Galen sees what’s going on and, because he finds the humans interesting and is sympathetic to their “maybe slavery isn’t so great” message, warns them about the pistol packing gorilla about to blow their heads off. The humans run, Galen tackles the ape gunman (gunape?), and in the struggle the gun goes off. The gorilla is dead. It’s murder most foul on…THE PLANET OF THE APES!!!

Galen is placed under arrest and sentenced to death. The escaped astronauts, on the other hand, run off to Zaius’ house to confront him. Zaius gives a lecture about how humans are violent savages who destroy themselves and everything they touch, as apes and Q so often like to point out. Virdon and Burke get tired of listening to his smug sanctimony so they tie him up and gag him. They run back to the jail, bust out Galen, and the three of them run off.

First stop, somewhere surely no one will think to look for them: back at their damn spaceship. They manage to get the little black box and head for cover only moments before Urko the Grouch and a squad of soldiers arrive to destroy all evidence that the ship existed. Now all equally on the round, our three heroes, two humans and one chimpanzee, head off for their next exciting adventure on…THE PLANET OF THE APES!!!

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