| Planet of the Apes | |
| |
| Episode | The Surgeon |
| Season | 1 |
| Production Number | B-509 |
| Air Date | Friday, October 25th, 1974 |
| Network | CBS |
| Director | Arnold Laven |
| Writer | Barry Oringer |
| Continuity | TV Series |
| Navigation | |
| Previous Episode: "Tomorrow's Tide"
Next Episode: "The Deception" | |
"The Surgeon" is the seventh episode of Planet of the Apes.
Cast[]
Starring:
Guest Starring:
- Mark Lenard as Urko
- Booth Colman as Zaius
- Jacqueline Scott as Kira
- Michael Strong as Travin
- Martin Brooks as Leander
- Jamie Smith Jackson as girl (Arna)
- David Naughton as Dr. Stole
- Raymond Mayo as human
- Diana Hale as Brigid
- Phil Montgomery as Jordo
- Ron Stein as Haman / Lafer
- Eldon Burke as Chester
- Peter Ireland as Cleon
- [unknown] as Asher
Production Crew
- Assistant Director ... Bill Derwin
- Music ... Lalo Schifrin
- Film Editor ... J. Frank O'Neill
Synopsis[]
Virdon is shot and seriously injured in an escape from gorilla soldiers and Galen goes to Kira, a surgeon who happens to be an old girlfriend. The highlight of the episode is a daring raid on Zaius' study to obtain a book of human anatomy, without which Kira feels unable to operate.
Notes[]
- After exploring the areas around San Francisco, Oakland and the Pacific coast, the fugitives are forced to return to Central City.
- The 'New Territory' was one of the regions surrounding ape-controlled lands that Urko thought the fugitives might have escaped into. Another was the 'North Mountains'.[1]
- The title of the ancient 20th Century book kept by Zaius, which was to save Virdon's life, was 'Principles of Surgery' by Dr. Walter Mather of the Hanson Clinic. Burke was familiar with his work.[2]
- When Galen and Burke broke into Zaius' home, they used a bust of his predecessor Doswa on a stretcher, pretending it was the body of Zaius.
- The Surgeon, together with The Deception, was adapted as Planet of the Apes #2: Escape to Tomorrow by George Alec Effinger, and published by Award Books.
- This episode formed the first half of the fourth TV movie Life, Liberty and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes (paired with The Interrogation), originally broadcast in 1981.
- See Also: Planet of the Apes Encyclopedia: The Surgeon (reprinted from Ape Chronicles #45 by Terry Hoknes)
Trivia[]
- The seventh episode to be broadcast (25 October in the USA, 24 November in the UK), this was the ninth episode filmed, chronologically, according to the Production Code.[3]
Behind the Scenes[]
"On a later visit to the small planet in the Santa Monica Mountains, the set-side fun and games were noticeably subdued. The Nielsen ratings for the second week of the new season had been posted, and Friday night had been cornered by NBC. Chico and the Man was the No. 1 show for the week, Sanford and Son No. 3. Apes, directly opposite, was No. 43.
Galen was leading astronauts Alan and Pete across the dry, stony bed of Malibu Creek, tracked by the camera as they scuttled away from the pursuing gorillas. A few yards downstream a deer emerged from the woods, surveyed the goings-on, gave the cervine equivalent of a shrug, then bounded across the creek and vanished among the cottonwoods and sycamores on the opposite bank. A visitor, watching it, said, “Beautiful!” A gorilla slumping next to him said, dispiritedly: “Why? Is a deer supposed to be good luck or something?”
Things picked up considerably at lunch time. It was Roddy McDowall’s 46th birthday. Eldon and Ronnie, the stunt gorillas, lugged McDowall out of his trailer, in a two-man fireman’s carry, to officiate over his birthday cake and open his present from the crew. Roddy was wearing a turquoise terrycloth jacket over his green chimp-tights, and violet shades over his sunken chimp-eyes. An ivory cigarette-holder protruded from his chimp-mouth. He had trouble extinguishing the birthday candles. “Blow harder,” somebody said and Roddy said, “Look, I don’t want to blow my face off!”
He was genuinely touched by his present: an inscribed silver wine bucket and a pair of matching wine cups. All that was missing, he noted, was a silver straw. The setting was eminently apropos. It was here, on the Century Ranch, 33 years ago, that Roddy McDowall became a movie star. The ranch was dressed up like a Welsh mining town then. The movie was “How Green Was My Valley.”
Then it was back to the usual routine on your usual ape-show location. Apes lined up with humans to draw their day’s travel pay. Apes, along with humans, hitched a ride back to the set on a prop truck. Other apes, stretching the lunch break to the fullest, stretched out to sunbathe, from the appliance down. Roddy McDowall was still hopping delightedly from crewperson to crewperson, thanking each one for the marvelous gift on his most marvelous birthday."
- Rowland Barber, TV Guide (December 7, 1974), possibly on the set of The Surgeon[4] (Tomorrow's Tide was being filmed on Friday 13 September 1974 - four days before McDowall's birthday).[5]
External Links[]
- Planet of the Apes (TV Series) at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
- Planet of the Apes (TV Series) index at TV.com
References[]
| Planet of the Apes TV Series | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Escape from Tomorrow" | "The Gladiators" | "The Trap" | "The Good Seeds" | "The Legacy" | "Tomorrow's Tide" | "The Surgeon" |
| "The Deception" | "The Horse Race" | "The Interrogation" | "The Tyrant" | "The Cure" | "The Liberator" | "Up Above the World So High" |