Apes on TV: Medium specificity and considerations of continuity in early transmedia storytelling

Moving to the small screen

The original Planet of the Apes film had been a financial success for the studio, and within five years had spawned three sequels: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972). Although each movie saw reduced production budgets and decreasing box office returns, the series was still lucrative for 20th Century Fox, with Conquest alone bringing in just over $9 million USD on a production budget of less than $2 million USD. In 1973, CBS purchased the broadcast rights to all the Apes films, including the yet-to-be-made Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). This purchase came with, “the option to develop the property as a possible 1974–1975 series,” on which they quickly acted ( Variety, 1973a).

Despite the relative success of the films, many in the industry viewed the Planet of the Apes television series with raised eyebrows. The films had also fallen out of favor with the critics. Roger Ebert (1973) gave Battle only two stars feeling the series had become overexploited stating, “anyone who hasn’t had enough apes after the first four in the series has probably, by now, gone ape all by himself.” Many viewed the choice to create a television series as an overtly commercial endeavor. Shortly before the series premiered, Broadcasting magazine reported, “a few of the agency men think the show is a blatant attempt to capitalize on the hit movies” ( Broadcasting, 1974). Although claims of commercial motivation were obviously not untrue, they were likely exacerbated by the perceived low cultural value of television, especially at the time. Horace Newcomb argued that, at the time, most people viewed television as an unworthy area of study because works on television were seen to be, “designed for commercial purposes, because they have been created by groups rather than individuals, or because they do not seem to have distinct aesthetic qualities” (1974: 19). The series risked reaffirming television’s position as a primarily commercially motivated medium.

CBS, on the other hand, seemed to have full confidence in the series. Variety reported the Apes series was not even required to have a pilot because, “Apes theatrical films were considered sufficient evidence that the concept could work…” ( Variety, 1974). Furthermore, the film series had proved to be massively successful in syndication. Throughout the early 1970s, CBS had been airing the 1968 original as a CBS Friday Night Movie. Each time it aired any movie from the series, CBS blew away all the other networks in ratings ( Variety, 1973b). In fact, in September of 1973, five years after the original film had been a huge theatrical success, its broadcast pulled in ratings of 58%, beating out every other network for the entire week ( Broadcasting, 1973). The Apes television series offered an opportunity to not only continue those ratings on a weekly basis but also provided the opportunity for the undervalued medium to show its potential for spectacle-driven television.

While Apes received a lot of buzz, it was far from the first attempt to bring a Hollywood property to the small screen. Hollywood had been attempting to find ways to exploit their properties through the medium of broadcasting for over a decade. As Michele Hilmes has argued, “by the end of 1953, all the major studios either had on the air or announced plans for their own television productions, which would organize the exploitation of Hollywood properties and stars over TV” (1990: 155). CBS had seen significant success with another Fox property in the television series M*A*S*H, which was adapted from the movie of the same name and was a relatively big hit for the network. Planet of the Apes was a well-known property that could lead to even bigger ratings for the network, especially if the numbers they were getting from airing the movies were any indication. However, Apes would prove to be a much more ambitious undertaking than other adaptations. The science fiction nature of the series required more intricate set design and a wider variety of outdoor shooting locations. Furthermore, the emphasis on action sequences required more extras and shooting time (Barber, 1974). All of this was complicated further by the decision to try and perfectly replicate the ape makeup from the films.

Prioritising visual continuity

The original Planet of the Apes film won an academy award for its makeup, which was done by legendary special effects artist John Chambers. Early in the production, there was skepticism as to whether television could match those iconic special effects. According to Broadcasting magazine, advertising executives believed the series would fail because it wouldn’t, “be able to maintain the production value (particularly the complicated primate make-up, which takes hours to apply) that put the stamp of uniqueness on the feature films” ( Broadcasting, 1974). Producers of the series took this as a challenge and seemed determined to compete with the visual quality of the film in every way. In an article for the magazine TV Channels, the executive producer of the show, Herbert Hirschman, made it clear that they were taking the visuals very seriously, stating that the makeup process for the actors was, “tortuous,” and that, “actors suffering from claustrophobia need not apply” (Ryan, 1974).

The reliance on visuals was further exacerbated by a need to establish some creative continuity between the films and the movies. Science fiction and fantasy series tended to do better on television when they were driven by a strong creative figure. As Jason Mittell (2015) argues of television, “The final product of an aired episode goes through intense collaborative processes, filtering the contributions of performers, designers, editors, and network executives, but the responsibility for the end product rests with the showrunner” (p. 91). While ‘showrunner’ is a more modern name given to the creative figure attributed to the authorship of TV series, many successful shows from the early days of TV were driven by an individual who could harness a singular vision for the series in this way (i.e. Norman Lear, Gene Roddenberry). In writing about the success of the show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–1968), which was based on the film of the same name, Gerald Duchovnay argues “a key difference between Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and most other adaptation efforts is that the series had continuity and a controlling creative presence…” (2008: 70). Duchovnay suggests having producer/director Irwin Allen in charge of both the film and the TV adaptation allowed the producers of the show to not only bring in their knowledge of the series but also allowed them to bring in sets, costumes and personnel from the film’s production creating a sense of visual and thematic continuity between the two versions of the story. Having a strong authorial figure might have been even more important for sci-fi content as it assured sci-fi fans of a certain quality. Henry Jenkins and John Tulloch argue that Gene Roddenberry was instrumental in getting Star Trek (1966–1969) on the air because he, “recognized the important role that fandom played in the reception of genre-related texts…” (1995: 10). When Star Trek was threatened with cancellation, it was the fans that wrote to the studio and kept the show on the air for an additional season. In other words, having one central person who understood the property and its fan base, while not essential, was likely somewhat beneficial to a successful transition from film to television as it not only provided someone who understood the text in a broader sense but also acted as an assurance to the fan base of a certain level of quality.

Apes, on the other hand, lost their creative leader before the start of the series. Producer Arthur P Jacobs died in 1973. Shortly after his death, the Apes property was sold to 20th Century Fox. This further distanced the film from any tangible or humanising creative force, and likely exacerbated claims that the TV series was simply a corporate calculation. Without the creative head of the series, producers likely looked for other ways to emphasise the continuity between the world of the films and the world of the television series. In the press, Roddy McDowall seemed to be one representative of that connection. He was cast to play Galen, a chimpanzee character who would be the main ally of the humans in the series. McDowall had previously played the lead ape character in most of the Apes movies. While his actual role shifted from film to film, McDowall was always a character in full ape makeup. As such, his expertise revolved around the application of, as well as the performance in, the complicated prosthetic masks. McDowall did his part in interviews to assure fans that the makeup was authentic. In one interview regarding his role in the upcoming series he stated:

Actors have difficulty at first with the face. They watch the mouth. They must learn to act to the eyes. This – appliance, I suppose you should call it – is an ordeal. I have to get up at 4 a.m. and spend three hours in makeup while they mold it on me before I come to work. It’s unbearably hot. I insist on a day off in every script so my flesh can breathe. (Smith, 1974)

By prioritising and maintaining strong visual continuity early and consistently throughout the series, broadcasters likely hoped to hook channel surfers who would immediately recognise the well-known ape makeup. As Freeman (2015) argues of early Superman comics, “preserving stylistic coherence across these different texts had served to boost the sales of the comic books” (p. 219). In short, while visual continuity was prioritised, it seemed less a marker of early franchising logics and instead informed by the pressures put on broadcast television to compete with the film series visually, as well as an attempt to be sure the series was associated, at first glance, with the iconic property.

Vague narrative threads

Narratively, though the film and the television series are meant to exist in the same universe, how they fit together is somewhat ambiguous. The series follows two astronauts from earth, Alan Virdon (Ron Harper) and Peter Burke (James Naughton) who crash land on, what they later find out, is Earth in the distant future. Apes have evolved to be the most intelligent species on the planet. As a result, apes now rule and keep humans as servants. Throughout the series, the astronauts are pursued by a gorilla named Urko who wants to capture and kill them, and an orangutan named Zaius who is trying to hide the existence of intelligent humans from the rest of the apes. Burke and Virdon befriend a chimpanzee named Galen (McDowell) who joins them on their quest to somehow get back to their time period.

While it is certainly not attempting to be a remake of the first movie, the pilot episode does cover much of the same narrative ground as the 1968 film. In many ways, the first episode acts as a quick introduction into the world of the apes, swiftly presenting to the viewers some of the more well-known aspects of the series without drawing them out for climatic effect. In the movie, one of the most memorable scenes comes at the very end, when Charlton Heston’s character stands before a crumbled Statue of Liberty and realises that humans had destroyed the Earth in a nuclear war. This haunting image stood out to viewers and critics at the time. However, in the show, this information is delivered in dialogue and provides a brief, mid-episode cliff-hanger, likely imagined as a way to hold viewers through the commercial break. ² Michael Z Newman (2006) has noted the ways televisual narrative strategies, particularly primetime serial narratives, are shaped, in part, by the corporate logics of the industry. He argues that television, as a mass art, “strives for accessibility and ease of comprehension (p. 17).” He points to the way television is comprised of three levels of narrative: scenes, otherwise known as ‘beats’, that drive the narrative from moment to moment; mid-level narratives or ‘episodes’; and ‘arcs’ which are narratives that can unfold over multiple episodes. Newman suggests, “beats, episodes, and arcs offer proven means of winning audiences over” (p. 25). Therefore, while the story elements from the series were influenced by the original film, it seemed to take its narrative structure less from the three-act world or tradition of the big screen and more from the beat-driven narrative mechanics of the small one.

For example, the TV series similarly follows astronauts who crash land on a planet. However, despite similar plot elements, events unfolded much more quickly in the TV series, forgoing suspense to orient the audience within the world of the apes early in the pilot episode, “Escape From Tomorrow.” We follow Virdon and Burke, who crash land on the planet. They are quickly pulled from the spaceship and wake up in a village where their human rescuer informs them that they are on Earth. Coincidently, this human is also a collector of illegal artifacts, and he possesses a book that informs the astronauts they are over 1000 years in the future. The book outlines the path of self-destruction humanity has taken, which serves as exposition not only for the astronauts but the audience as well. Shortly after, the astronauts are informed by their rescuer that they need to be careful and hide. “From what?” Burke asks. “Apes of course,” the man replies. Dramatic music follows this reveal, and the scene fades to black ( Planet of the Apes, 1974. 1: 1). Newman argues in television, “no moment is without a dramatic function, no scene is redundant with other scenes or digressive from the narrative’s forward progress” (p. 18). Thus, 15 minutes into the pilot episode, the final twist that culminates the film has been reinterpreted into a series of beats that drive the narrative to a moment of (attempted) suspense that will hopefully hook the audience through the commercial break.

While Newman notes that it is through this type of narrative momentum built around dramatic beats that television often “flourishes artistically” (p. 17), Apes’ intertextual relationship with the film series sometimes complicated, and was complicated by, the apparent need to strictly conform to traditional televisual narrative structures. While it is clear by the visuals and the basic premise that the series takes place in the same world as the films, it is much less clear exactly how they are narratively connected. The casual viewer might have assumed the events of the series take place sometime after the events of the original film, effectively making it a sequel. The main indicator of this would be the character Dr Zaius, who was one of the central antagonists in the original movie. A version of Zaius appears in the TV series. Although played by a different actor, his costuming is identical to that of the film, and he holds a similar role in the story. ³ On more than one occasion during the series, he references events from the first film as having happened 10 years ago. These moments suggest that we’re watching a story that takes place shortly after the events from the first film. ⁴

Upon close inspection, however, narrative connections between the films and the series become more ambiguous. While in some ways it seemed the writers wanted the series to be read as a direct continuation of the films, it also could just as easily be read as an early example of what Andrew Scahill (2016) called a television “pre-boot.” Scahill defines a pre-boot as a show that functions as a prequel to and a reboot of the source material on which it is based (p. 318). For example, the original film takes place in the year 3978, as demonstrated by a digital calendar on the astronauts’ spaceship. The TV series is set in the year 3085 (again something we can tell from a digital readout on the ship), 900 years before the events of the films. However, as Scahill notes, reboots often seek to “rescue the story from the distancing effects of time” by modernising them with darker, edgier motifs (p. 319). Yet, the Planet of the Apes series was not trying to distance itself from the main series, as the films were still fresh in people’s minds, both from the sequels and through syndication. If anything, CBS wanted to associate the film with the story world as much as possible. And ultimately, reading it as a pre-boot doesn’t explain why characters continually reference events from the first movie.

While it is unclear what the intentions were for the series, these discrepancies in dates were likely less a conscious attempt to cleverly explain away narrative liberties the series was taking through a creative inclusion of an alternate timeline, and more likely resulted, instead, from a set of governing logics that didn’t value the careful management of narrative continuity across various media. However, while the narrative continuity lacked the nuance of modern transmedia properties, the fact that the series does not opt to simply reboot the series with the same characters suggests the series, while not directly influencing the narrative world of the films, was intended to perhaps feed into or inform them in some way.

The thematic disconnect

Perhaps the most apparent departure from the film worlds was in the television series’ overall tone and thematic elements. Although certainly remembered and admired for their groundbreaking special effects, the films garnered their staying power from their story and their ability to be read allegorically for American civil unrest at the time. The racial politics within the film struck a chord with an American audience that was in the midst of social unrest. By showing apes treating humans as if they were somehow lesser beings, the movie seemed to give people a way to visualise prejudice outside of their current contexts, while also playing into fears about nuclear warfare.

Despite the decline in critical reception and box office sales, the films often contained ambiguously allegorical plots that left the series open to interpretation. At the time, film historian David Zinman (1973) wrote of the movie, “…overriding these hokey gags is a first-rate science fiction fantasy embellished with penetrating commentary on human values” (p. 95). The series is still considered by science fiction historians and enthusiasts to be one of the more complex and socially relevant series within the genre. Eric Greene (1996) deconstructs the lasting effects the films have had on American culture: “Unlike other liberal ‘problem films’ dealing with race, Apes films do not depoliticise racism by excessively personalising it as solely attitudinal and therefore remediable by tolerance, or solely ignorance and remediable by education” (p.149). Greene argues the complex imagery of the films (the crumbling Statue of Liberty, the Earth having been destroyed by nuclear weapons, etc.) allowed the movies to live on in culture as a sort of myth.

The television series, on the other hand, rarely aimed to challenge dominant worldviews, but instead aimed to reinforce them. Conforming to the expectation of broadcast television, CBS mandated the show unfold in an episodic fashion, avoiding any real serialised narratives. Story consultants on the show Joe Ruby and Ken Spears (2010) said years later in an interview with a fanzine, “we treated (or tried to treat) every script like a mini-movie. Nothing else mattered” (p. 3). Burke and Virden are portrayed as gentle, kind and all knowing. They embody an unassuming innocence that, in contrast, make the apes seem primitive, unreasonable and often barbaric. Adversely, the films acted as a blatant critique of humanity’s more destructive tendencies. In the first film, Heston played, as The Hollywood Reporter put it in their review of the film, “an embittered cynic” (Staff, 1968). His character was often brash, cold towards his companions and antagonistic with his ape captors. This characterization is perhaps no more evident than in his famous line, “take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!”

One of the largest changes made to the narrative world in the television series was in the portrayal of the native humans. In the original movie, humans had devolved to the point where their intelligence level was on par with a monkey. Apes, on the other hand, had elevated to a point where they were the most intelligent beings on the planet. By allowing the native humans to talk, the series undermines a central logic of the entire franchise, ⁵ though it also afforded the writers the opportunity to tell certain human stories, which would feel familiar to television audiences of the 1970s. For example, in the episode titled “The Legacy,” Virdon is captured by the gorillas. In prison, he meets a native human woman and her son. Virdon becomes close with the son and begins to take on a fatherly role, something he frequently does throughout the series. He teaches the boy the importance of trust, and by the end of the episode, he and the woman and the boy form a heteronormative nuclear family ( Planet of the Apes, 1974. 1: 5). The relationship between Virdon and the woman reflects a rapport that one might have seen in any television series during the time period, made possible only by allowing the native human characters to speak.

Traditional conservative family values become a common theme throughout the television series. Several episodes (including “The Legacy”) feel like parables, in which viewers are taught a moral or practical lesson each week. One episode, “The Good Seed,” demonstrates this most visibly. In this episode, Galen, Virdon and Burke come across an ape-run farm. Galen is injured, and the astronauts pretend to be the property of Galen. The farmer agrees to let them stay as long as they help with work that he needed to be done around the property. As Galen heals, Burke aids the farmer’s young son in building a fence, and Virdon helps the farmer plow the field. Both Virdon and Burke impart wisdom to the apes. As Burke begins to build a split rail fence, the boy objects saying, “that’s not what a fence looks like.” Burke tells the boy this is the way to build a fence that won’t fall, the boy replies, “Fences never last long, they’re not supposed to” ( Planet of the Apes, 1974. 1: 4).

The two ‘civilised’ men travel from village to village telling the uncivilised men and apes how to live off the land. In some ways, it feels like a reversal of pilgrims and Native Americans, where the Europeans come and teach the natives how to live off the lands they have lived on for years. Greene (1996) offers a different reading of the series overall narrative, pointing out that “whereas the United States may have lost the hearts and minds of the peasants in Vietnam, it at least won the hearts and minds of the peasants on the planet of the apes” (p. 158). Whatever the allegory, the show went out of its way to make White middle-class conservative viewers feel more comfortable than the films did. Each episode is intermixed with jokes (mostly from Burke) and moments of understanding and conservative values (mostly stemming from Virdon). The ape families they come across are often heteronormative, with a father who is the patriarch and a mother who works at home.

The television series tended to reduce racial issues between apes and humans to problems of individual bias as opposed to larger structural issues. For example, in “The Good Seed,” the son of the farmer is convinced the humans are putting a curse on his ox. However, when Virdon helps the ox deliver two healthy calves, the son realises the error of his ways and ends up helping the humans escape. Here, through good deeds, the humans prove their worth to the apes and overcome issues of prejudice. “The Deception” is an example of an episode that seems to deal with issues of racism directly. This episode opens with the lynching of a human by a gorilla. When Galen, Virden and Burke witness this, Galen dramatically says, “it’s so senseless, Why? Why?” Virdon replies, “I can make a guess. We’ve seen this kind of thing before, another time, another place.” As the episode progresses, we discover that a group of apes is responsible for an outbreak of recent terrorism against humans in the area. These apes call themselves The Dragoons; they wear hoods and spread fear among humans through violent acts. This is a not so subtle allusion to racial hate groups like the KKK. Soon the humans befriend a young blind ape girl who assumes they are also apes. She tells them how she hates humans because a human killed her father, so Burke and Virdon continue to allow her to believe they are apes. The girl eventually ends up falling in love with Burke and when she learns he is human becomes heartbroken. In the end, it is revealed that it was not a human that killed her father, but another ape ( Planet of the Apes, 1974. 1: 8).

Robin Nelson (1997) argues, that in the late 1970s “a change in format from traditional narrative mode in TV drama of problem leading to resolution was called for,” and that, “the protracted telling of a single story with perhaps a comic relief sub-plot demanded a level of sustained attention which could not be guaranteed” (p. 31). He suggests, while CBS was still concerned with the maximum number of viewers possible, NBC was attempting to construct a ‘quality audience’ built around emerging studies of marketable demographics. This required them to cater to the burgeoning Feminist and Civil Rights generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Dealing with these complex issues, however, required an equally complex narrative approach. Nelson argues that it was during this time networks began embracing narrative trends which allowed for multiple interwoven plot strands, as was common in daytime soap operas. Nelson calls these ‘flexi-narratives’ or televisual storytelling strategies which embrace a more relaxed approach to the traditional episodic hour-long drama format by allowing several plots to be introduced that may not be tied up by the end of the episode leading to a more serialised plot structure overall. While this type of narrative structure would become commonplace later in the decade, CBS particularly was still invested in building large audiences and therefore relied on traditional episodic narratives that demanded less intellectual energy from viewers (Nelson, 1997: 42).

The inclination to rely on episodic narratives stifled the moral complexity and narrative open-endedness the fans had come to expect from the series and, perhaps ironically, may have attributed to its low ratings. Consider the above example. Here, the issue of prejudice is blamed on a simple misunderstanding, once the misunderstanding is rectified, the ape woman overcomes her deeply held prejudices against all humans. The episodic nature of the series forces the narratives to find some sort of resolution at the end of each story. This style of storytelling, as Nelson (1997) suggests, “did not facilitate new challenges leading to the examination of values, at a time of a sense of the greater complexity of issues” (p. 31). This results in a series that feels out of sync with the films which routinely ended with open-ended narratives that pushed viewers to question human nature and actively engaged with the political themes of the moment. It instead opts to leave audiences with a neatly packaged moral at the end of each episode that fits within the episodic structure most audiences would expect from a weekly television series.

Though the inherent nature of episodic television invited simpler stories, the tempering of overt political themes in favor of a more neutral ideological perspective was likely exacerbated by the financial pressures associated with a commitment to visual continuity. Though it may have provided a certain level of brand recognition to the new series, the special effects put pressure on the series to draw a wider audience. The time required to apply the makeup increased the length of shooting days, and ultimately the budget of each episode (Barber, 1974). Broadcasting reported that CBS was charging an astronomically high amount for advertising, stating. “CBS is setting the cost-per-minute to advertisers unrealistically high, the networks’ clear implication being that the show can’t possibly fail” (Lewis, 1974). While that may have been read as a vote of confidence in the series, it was more likely an imperative; the show could not fail. Planet of the Apes needed to cultivate as large an audience as possible to remain on the air. The show was extremely expensive. Production costs were well over $200,000USD per episode, which was about $40,000USD more than the average hour-long drama (Lewis, 1974). Therefore, the implementation of any truly controversial storylines or perspectives (especially early on in the series run) could risk the alienation of the general television viewing audience the show required to justify the hefty advertising price.

Though today conglomerate structures help facilitate the flow of brands and properties across various platforms in ways that reinforce and support the overall brand, CBS, especially at the time, was not primarily driven by what was best for the Apes property in general. Instead, their chief concern was what would best serve the widest television audience. As Todd Gitlin (1983) has suggested, “Although executives may not be allergic to what they deem quality, the networks as a whole aim to create not purposeful or coherent, or true or beautiful shows, but audiences” (p. 56, emphasis added). While Gitlin’s assertions about quality are perhaps overstated (those working on Apes likely were striving for coherence and quality of some sort – certainly in terms of visuals), the show was attempting to construct a large audience consisting of both existing Apes fans and general television viewers. Furthermore, perhaps, especially in this later stage of the properties life, Apes was viewed by 20th Century Fox and CBS as a product more than a work of art. Therefore, assuming Apes fans would be brought to it primarily through visual branding, CBS attempted to appeal thematically to conservative adult families. The show’s conservative values were not necessarily a conscious effort to rebrand the franchise, but simply an attempt at keeping with industrial logics of the medium. In her book Heartland TV, Victoria Johnson (2008) suggests that, for most of the history of broadcasting, the American audience was imagined to be “characterized by centrist – and, increasingly post the 1960s, neoconservative- traditional cultural values…” (p. 4). Of course, television was not incapable of offering more complex narratives that directly engaged with political issues at the time. As Elana Levine (2007) has noted, by the 1970s, television began to overtly push certain boundaries, specifically those of sexuality. This suggests there was a space and a market for programming that fell outside of hegemonic norms. As a testament to this idea, Sanford and Son (1972–1977) was already a big hit for NBC, and Chico and the Man (1974–1978) was set to premiere in the fall of 1974, suggesting that NBC was having some success with a block of programming dealing directly with racial issues. In fact, Chico and the Man routinely beat Planet of the Apes in the ratings (Knight, 1974). However, as a network with more affiliates in several smaller rural markets, CBS’s programming relied even more on these traditional cultural values (Gitlin, 1983: 57). Even when CBS sensed there might be trouble with the show, they seemingly weren’t that interested in deepening the themes. Instead, they brought in story consultants from Saturday morning children programming to make the shows, “more like the movies” (Ruby and Spears, 2010: 3). Assuming the science fiction audience would be hooked by the visuals, and those interested in more progressive content would be watching NBC, CBS likely opted to counterprogram Apes against Chico and the Man and Sanford and Son. By molding the show into a family-friendly adventure series they muted most of the complex racial, gender and political allegory inherent in the films which, in turn, invited Variety to write, “the ape makeup and costuming that gulled movie audiences was only ludicrous in this retarded exercise in action-adventure television” (Greeley, 1974). This suggests that the lack of thematic continuity somehow managed to cheapen the visuals the network had spent so much money on and positioned television as a risky space to extend a franchise story. Ultimately, CBS decided to cancel the series, and only 14 episodes were produced (Ruby and Spears, 2010: 3).

Conclusion

Two years before the release of Planet of the Apes CBS developed another 20th Century Fox film into a television series, the Robert Altman directed war comedy MASH (1970). The resulting sitcom M*A*S*H (1972–1983) went on to be a massive success for the network earning several awards, high ratings and much critical acclaim over its ten and a half seasons. The success of M*A*S*H has been attributed to a number of things, including a skilled creative team lead by Larry Gelbart, charismatic actors and timely themes that seemed to mirror the Vietnam war. In fact, Gelbart claims to have refused to work on the series unless the network agreed to be true to the tone of the movie (Reiss, 1983: 110). Overall, the approach the show took to transition the property differed from Apes in significant ways. Most notably, the show was not trying to expand a fictional universe in the same way Apes was. Instead, it was treated as a remake. Because of this, it didn’t have to wrestle with issues of continuity visually, narratively or otherwise. Perhaps more importantly, the show was not burdened with the same financial pressures of Apes and was allowed to find its own voice as the series progressed, and even eventually delve into some more controversial political themes. As James Wittebols has argued, “its own political humor would evolve in the second year of the show” (Wittebols, 1998: 15). However, much like Apes, one thing the studio remained firm on was that M*A*S*H needed to be a sitcom, and it had to conform to the expectations of that structure. The creative team fought hard to omit the use of a laugh track for the series, but it was one of the few things CBS refused to compromise on (Wittebols, 1998: 17). Though M*A*S*H was able to translate the war comedy into a classic sitcom structure, for Apes, this reworking undermined the nature of the series. The commitment to strict televisual forms made it difficult to reimagine a series of films that had become known for open-ended, thought-provoking conclusions into a case of the week format with no real narrative arc beyond the loose idea that these astronauts might one day find a way to return home, something only gestured to occasionally. In many ways, the series became simply a branded version of another well-known show, The Fugitive (1963–1967). As actor James Naughton, who played Burke, has argued, the series “kind of became The Fugitive…each week we were caught, and then we escaped. That’s basically what each show was about” ( Behind the Planet of the Apes, 1998).

In an article that appeared in TV Guide after the show was canceled, writer Rowland Barber (who’d been following the production from the beginning) commented on the overconfidence of the production team. When told by the director of the show that he “has the creative freedom to play God and create new worlds,” Barber’s sly reply read:

Unfortunately, it’s hard to play God on a six-day bike race of a production schedule, and the criterion of Creation’s progress is “How many pages did we shoot today?” as a result there is a surfeit of Jungle Jim action shots, skulking around corners and darting from bush to bush to adrenaline music and muted horns, and a modicum of Truth Revealed (Barber, 1974: 10).

The timing of this particular transmedia failure – so close to the dawn of modern franchising – positions it at a unique place where 20th Century Fox, the studio that would later be responsible for Star Wars (1977), was feeling out what managing a media franchise meant and how far, or more importantly into what spaces, a brand could be pushed. In the end, the discourse around Apes likely did little to reassure the studio that prime time television was a viable space for exploiting the value of popular film franchises. Even today, examples of film franchises that extend the narratives onto the small screen are extremely rare, usually only finding success in animation ( Star Wars: Clone Wars (2008–2015), Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018)). Even the few examples of live-action series that expand a cinematic universe ( Agents of Shield (2013–) tend to be supported by a large horizontally integrated conglomerate that can support the high production values as the show finds an audience. While I don’t want to necessarily suggest that the Planet of the Apes television series had a significant impact on the cultural position of television as an art form, nor would I argue that its failure is solely responsible for the relative dearth of film to television transmedia narratives, it is clear that this particular attempt at transmedia storytelling did little to blur the lines between the mediums. Rather, the series only emphasised the imagined disparity between the two and proved that these types of cross-media narratives posed great risks to both the cultural position of the medium and the value of the property. Future research may also want to consider the way gender plays into these dynamics; for example, the adapting of story worlds from a medium considered to be more masculine to a more feminised one and how certain properties may be resistant to or amenable to that transition and why. Ultimately, the Apes series offers a valuable case study that brings us closer to understanding these complex relationships between art, commerce, television and film, not only historically but today. While the logics of transmedia storytelling have evolved since 1974, as more and more media companies seek to build large transmedia universes, will television become a more viable space for these pursuits or will what was once considered the “floppo disappointment of the year,” now be read as an apt cautionary tale?