Airdate: November 1, 1974
Written by Anthony Lawrence
Directed by Don McDougall
Synopsis: Galen, Virdon and Burke befriend a chimpanzee named Fauna, the blind daughter of an ape supposedly killed by humans. Unaware that Burke is human, Fauna falls in love with him, as Galen and Virdon hunt down the masked Dragoons, a band of anti-human vigilantes on a campaign of intimidation, only to discover that Fauna's uncle is one of them.
Directed by Don McDougall
Synopsis: Galen, Virdon and Burke befriend a chimpanzee named Fauna, the blind daughter of an ape supposedly killed by humans. Unaware that Burke is human, Fauna falls in love with him, as Galen and Virdon hunt down the masked Dragoons, a band of anti-human vigilantes on a campaign of intimidation, only to discover that Fauna's uncle is one of them.
Trey: There is a lot I like about this episode but also some things that I am less fond of.
Jason: We start out in total agreement!
Trey: The central story with the Dragoons and various factions of apes being shown is interesting. We've got pro-human apes, violent anti-human apes, and by-the-book apes who are quite prejudiced against humans, but also by the book. It's all very metaphorical for the U.S. and race relations of the era, or perhaps a decade before.
Jason: Ham-fisted stuff, but its heart is in the right place. Does this kind of allegorical treatment of such serious subject matter stand the test of time? Was it even up to speed with its own times?
Trey: I do like how it sort of mocks the Klan stand-in Dragoons when Galen infiltrates them, but portraying them kind of as wannabe apes of resolve, that are to a degree kind of cosplaying a militia. Not that it isn't serious enough for the humans getting harassed, but their main power isn't so much in their actions, but the fact that they have societal support and cover.
Jason: It's hard to tell just how intentional some of these elements were, but yes, those hateful apes come across as a ludicrous, if still lethal, force. My impression was that POTA apes, despite sincere efforts made, simply can't match human beings when it comes to cruelty. While an ape might not think twice about shooting of a human being for any reason, they treat each other better than humans do. As odious as human oppression is as depicted in the series, the conditions beat the treatment of apes in our world (especially at the time) by a country mile.
Tangentially, I couldn't help but think of the cast and extras - I hope they got to skip ape makeup on Dragoon shooting days.
Trey: We can hope! Fauna's story is a bit of classic TV stock, but I think it's made a bit more interesting in this story of prejudice, because her disability suggests a degree o3f disenfranchisement that ought to make her a natural ally of humans, but in a refreshingly realistic turn, she isn't.
Jason: Fauna's vengeful anti-human bias rang true, as you say. The Little House on the Planet of the Apes vibes returned with a vengeance in this subplot. The fact that human voices are indistinguishable from those of apes sent me reeling for a moment until I regained my senses and remembered this is less science fiction than parable.
Trey: A point you made while watching the episode: Virdon's fight with the soldier is one of the grittiest we've gotten.
Jason: t was brutal! The stunt work in this show has been pretty solid. Like Burke's one-on-one match with Orko in episode 3, superior ape-strength comes into play, which I appreciate for no good reason. Virdon had to work hard and sustain plenty of damage to survive the encounter. Outside of anti-human hate crimes, this was the only action sequence this episode, and it was fun watching Virdon pursue and assault his quarry in full action hero mode for a change.
Roddy McDowell delivers a fine bit of espionage himself, all accomplished with his wit and charm. His Galen impersonates an unenlightened supremacist a little too well!
Trey: To circle back to your question about its success as an allegory of serious social issues a bit, what I didn't like was that it resolves too easily as all the blame is on "a few bad apples." In fact, the bad apples repent their ways when it seems like they may be siding with a guy that hurt other apes.
Jason: Apes are just better people! When their folly is made plain, they repent, or at least change course. No defensive doubling down or retreat into denial! All that wishful thinking aside, as depicted, this reversal was both abrupt and artless!
Trey: But if apes are just better people, well, we're perhaps in the arena of vaguely utopian (!) science fiction, and not allegory?
Jason: Seems like we're dancing haphazardly around both camps. TV entertainment is the prime directive.
Trey: Also, given the general level of ape-human relations we've seen, I don't think apes acting like the Dragoons would need to hide their identities. Rather, it seems the army would do it.
Jason: Maybe it's just no fun to form a secret society of evil without all the ceremonial pomp and circumstance? Or maybe it was convenient to forget about all that to drive the point home with no ambiguity (or subtlety) whatsoever!
Trey: Still, these sort of criticisms are a given for classic TV really.
Jason: That's right. You tune in for an hour in the evening ..,
Trey: And it just washes over you?
Jason: Well, yes. For my part, I remain pleasantly surprised at the watchability of this show. At times ridiculous, at others genuinely effective, this episode (and the series thus far) is a mixed bag that manages to hold my interest.
4 comments:
There really was a lot of variety in the episodes of this short-lived series. I'd say something like "if only they hadn't been cancelled so soon," but the episodes just weren't seriously engaging. The episodes we got are enough. Enjoyable, but we got enough.
Well, I think that's reasonable, but on the other hand, a lot of shows aren't strongest at the start of their first season. Neither TNG or Wild, Wild, West I don't think is as could at the outset as where it goes. It could be with more time, we would have seen better stuff from this one too.
As I said, I found the episodes to be enjoyable. But only mildly. And while I hear what you’re saying, I just can’t go along with it; certainly not in the case of a show. If you’re teaching a child to ride a bike, you can say “he’ll get better once he gets the hang of it,” and encourage him to keep trying. But a show is presumably created by professionals. You only get one chance to make a first impression, don’t air if you can’t hit the target. The idea that I would sit through twenty-seven disappointing episodes of a series in the hopes that they might get renewed anyway and possibly get to an acceptable level of quality that I would actually enjoy next year? Ludicrous, in my opinion. I don’t owe them anything, do the job right the first time or get out. Similarly we have bug-ridden software with inadequate testing that gets released because we tolerate an ongoing stream of “fixes” and “improvements” after you’ve already made the purchase. See what I mean? Now maybe, having worked on a bunch of TV shows myself, I’m less tolerant than other folks. But if you take the wider view and see what people routinely put up with, I think it’s more likely that too many folks accept low-quality product. Why? And for the record, I didn’t stick it out with either TNG or Wild Wild West. I am constant as the northern star. ;-)
We seem to be talking about two different things. I'm not telling you what you should do in terms of what sort of grace or time to grow you ought to give a TV show. If you want to ditch a program 20 minutes into the first episode, that's your call!
What I'm doing is describing what I believe to be an observable fact: some shows are better later on than they are at the beginning. Perhaps that means people are "putting up with lower quality shows" as you suggest, but it might also mean that the pleasure they derive from the tv viewing experience isn't predicated on every episode or even every show being somehow optimized.
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