Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975)

Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975)

13 episodes, approx. 30 minutes each.

An animated TV Series that borrows characters from some of the previous Planet of the Apes live action productions but is nevertheless its own thing, requiring no prior franchise knowledge.

The ape-world is more technologically advanced than we'd seen before, with concrete buildings, televisions, and automobiles with internal combustion engines, putting it closer to Pierre Boulle's original 1963 novel than any of its film or TV predecessors had come.

The means by which the three human astronauts — 

Jeff Allen (Austin Stoker), Bill Hudson (Tom Williams), and Judy Franklin (Claudette Nevins) – get to the titular 'planet' is similar to how it was for Taylor and Brent in Films 01 and 02, respectively.

The relationship that the trio of astronauts have with chimpanzee scientists Cornelius (Edwin Mills) and Zira (Philippa Harris) is reminiscent of how it was with the human-sympathisers and Taylor, making it feel like some kind of parallel timeline.

The astronauts' primary goal is to figure out a means to return to their own time, but they aren't blind to the state of the world around them, so will occasionally take time out to help the human population escape from, or triumph over, the controlling apes.

On the opposite side of the coin is military leader General Urko (Henry Corden), a gorilla who wants to exterminate all humans on the face of the planet. In the middle, keeping a delicate (and self-serving) equilibrium, are the orangutans, headed by Dr. Zaius (Richard Blackburn).

Voice work is variable, at best. The apes can be okay, but the humans are mostly awful. I'd say they phoned it in, but at times it's more like they couldn't even be bothered to get to the phone.

Many of the detailed backgrounds are impressive, like quality comic book art, but the limited animation that occurs in front of them (i.e., the characters that populate the world) are of a much lower standard, with a level of reused footage would make even Filmation blush. It's not helped by an overuse of the rostrum camera technique, which creates an empty atmosphere, at times.

Most episodes have a self-contained story that wraps up by its end, but there's some continuity throughout, particularly in the latter half of the series. Something interesting happens then, too, but the series got cancelled before the story could make further use of it.

-"Forward, to the Forbidden Zone - and don't tell me it's 'forbidden'!"-