Planet of the Apes: Episode Guide

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Episode 01: Escape from Tomorrow
Passing through a time warp, astronauts Virdon and Burke land back on earth in an unimaginable future. Captured by gorillas, they find an ally in the chimp Galen, who is fascinated by their origin. He helps them escape back to their spaceship where Virdon retrieves a magnetic memory disc that might help them return to the past, and the three become fugitives.

Episode 02: The Gladiators
The loss of the precious magnetic disc causes Burke and Virdon to become involved with gladiators, the burly Tolar and his son Dalton. The astronauts are captured in a village of humans ruled by an ape. Believing that men are violent natured, the simian encourages them to participate in grisly sports similar to those of Ancient Rome.

Episode 03: The Trap
Burke and his arch enemy, the gorilla soldier Urko, must work together to survive when an earthquake traps them in the ancient ruins of a subway station in Old San Francisco. Virdon and Galen get the ape soldiers to cooperate in a rescue. Meanwhile in a tunnel, Urkp goes ape when he sees an old zoo poster showing caged apes being fed peanuts.

Episode 04: The Good Seeds 
When Galen is wounded, Galen and the astronauts seek shelter at the farm of a peasant ape whose son believes that the humans have put a curse on their one precious possession–a cow, which goes into a difficult labor to give birth to twins. While they win their hosts over by teaching them valuable lessons about farming and saving the cow.

Episode 05: The Legacy 
In a ruined city, the astronauts find a filmed message from scientists of their own era. If they can elude gorilla pursuers long enough to repair the ancient projector, the film will tell them why their world was destroyed. They are aided in part by a young woman, Arn, and a street urchin, Kraik.

Episode 06: Tomorrow’s Tide
When the astronauts are captured by the chimp head in a fishing village employing human slave labor, they must prove their worth as fishermen or be sacrificed to the gods of the sea.

Episode 07: The Surgeon
After Virdon is shot and seriously injured in an escape from gorilla soldiers, Galen enlists the reluctant aid of a chimpanzee surgeon Kira, who was once his sweetheart.

Episode 08: The Deception 
While hunting a band of murderous ape dragoons, Burke becomes the object of the affections of a blind female ape, Fauna, who is unaware that he is human.

Episode 09: The Horse Race 
Under Urko’s very nose, Virdon manages to run a horse race, winning, as part of the stakes, the life of a blacksmith’s young son.

Episode 10: The Interrogation 
Captured by simian pursuers, Burke faces two equally menacing possibilities: The gorilla Urko wants to kill him, and the orangutan ruler Zaius wants to use him in a brain washing experiment. Galen and Virdon work out a rescue plan with the help of Galen’s parents, Ann and Yalu.

Episode 11: The Tyrant 
The fugitives are trying to foil the plans of a tyrannical ape, who is using bribery to gain total control over a district of human farmers. The trio help remove Aboro from office, even though they have to risk an encounter with Urko to do it.

Episode 12: The Cure 
The astronauts come across a village devastated by malaria and manage to help the local medical officer, Zoran, to discover a cure.

Episode 13: The Liberator
Laven, Galen and the astronauts get captured by a tribe of humans who turn over fellow humans to the gorillas as slaves.

Episode 14: Up Above the World So High
The Astronauts help a human, leuric, to make a working hang glider, arousing the unwelcome interest of a lady chimp scientist, Carsia.

Flames of Doom
Written by Larry Spiegel. Directed by Doug Wildey.

Astronauts Bill Hudson, Jeff Carter and Judy Franklin splashdown on the Planet of the Apes in the year 3979, when their spaceship the Venturer exhibits difficulties while taking part in a time-thrust experiment.

While crossing a barren wasteland, Franklin falls into a crack in the earth and Hudson and Carter encounter a group of primitive humans, one of whom is a girl called Nova wears the dog tags of an astronaut called Brent who was born a century after the Venturer crew set off on their journey.

Intelligent apes on horseback attack the humans and Hudson is captured and taken to Ape City.

Escape from Ape City
Written by Larry Spiegel. Directed by Doug Wildey

Bill Hudson is warned by the other humans captured in the raid not to speak in front of the apes.

Turned over to chimpanzee scientists Cornelius and Zira, Hudson is put through a series of intelligence tests. Delighted with the results Cornelius wants to subject the astronaut to a brain probe; alarmed by this Hudson breaks his silence shocking the two apes.

Hudson is overheard by a gorilla who informs the ape councilor Dr Zaius who orders that all humans are to be destroyed, the orders to be carried out by General Urko.

On hearing of Zaius’s decision, Cornelius and Zira help Hudson escape from Ape City, aided by Jeff Carter and Nova who had entered the city’s outskirts in search of their friend.

Lagoon of Peril
Written by J. C. Strong. Directed by Doug Wildey

Hudson and Carter return to the lagoon where their spaceship crashed to retrieve a laser. An ape force is also in search of the ship, after a soldier saw it crash into the lagoon.

Cornelius and Zira get a message to the two men warning of the army’s search, the astronauts decide to destroy the ship but first they have to battle a sea serpent that inhabits the lagoon.

As the ape army arrives they see the serpent and Zaius concludes that it was in fact the reported spaceship and that rumours of intelligent humans are false.

Tunnel of Fear
Written by Larry Spiegel. Directed by Doug Wildey

Realising that the humans are under constant threat from General Urko’s forces, Hudson and Carter plan to move the group to a new home.

The two astronauts sneak into Ape City and enlist the help of Cornelius and Zira, who at first are reluctant to defy the Supreme Council in what is a treasonous act. Cornelius, however, tells the two men of a hidden valley near one of his archaeological dig sites that might be suitable as a new home.

One the way the party passes the remains of an ancient civilisation and after a treacherous plunge down a waterfall they at last reach the site of the new settlement.

The UnEarthly Prophecy
Written by Jack Kaplan and John Barrett

Escaping the pursuing General Urko and his army, Hudson and Carter enter an underground tunnel that materialises out of thin air.

The two astronauts are stunned to find themselves in the remains of New York, which has fallen underground. The pair follows a group of cloaked and hooded figures to a cavern, the figures chant “USA” in front of another being draped in same clothes as the worshipers.

The astronauts are surprised to see that the being, is their lost colleague, Judy Franklin, who ignores their cries and shows no reaction when the two men are felled by a ray gun and imprisoned. 

Krador, leader of the race of people who inhabit the ruins of the city (the Underdwellers), informs the astronauts that Judy fulfils the prophecy that a leader called USA would return to them having been lost. The Underdwellers took one look at the U.S.A. on Judy’s uniform and put two and two together!

Judy breaks out of Krador’s telepathic trance long enough to lead Hudson and Carter back to safety, but returns to the underground city when Krador reasserts his control.

Terror on Ice Mountain
Written by Bruce Shelly. Directed by Doug Wildey

Cornelius comes into possession of a book called “A Day at the Zoo”, which shows primitive apes in captivity for the enjoyment of humans. Realising the danger posed by the book and its importance, Cornelius plans to spirit it away from Ape City. Hudson and Carter helps him with his plan, making a hot-air balloon out of blueprints that provided the wrapping for the book.

Hudson and Cornelius leave in the balloon but are pursued by the ape army. The pair land on the snow covered mountain of Ghar where they are sheltered by the followers of Kigor, god of the mountain apes. It is Kigor who defends his followers and Cornelius and Bill Hudson when they come under attack from Urko and his cohorts.

River of Flames
Written by Jack Kaplan and John Barrett. Directed by Doug Wildey

Judy contacts Hudson and Carter in an effort to help her save the Underdwellers’ home from a river of lava.

The two men retrieve their laser that has been stolen by Urko and cut a path with the laser, redirecting the lava flow and thus saving the city of the Underdwellers.

In thanks, Krador releases Judy from his control to depart with her friends, as long as she agrees to return whenever she is needed.

Screaming Wings
Written by Jack Kaplan and John Barrett. Directed by Doug Wildey

The three astronauts are surprised to see a WWII fighter plane, a P-40, piloted by an ape practicing attack runs on a target range that has human dummies as the targets!

Realising the danger presented by the aerial capability of the apes, the humans along with Cornelius and Zira plot to steal the plane.

The plan is carried out successfully, Judy taking the controls of the plane and flying it out of the reach of the apes, but not before destroying the factory that produces the planes and discrediting General Urko.

Trail to the Unknown
Written by Larry Spiegel. Directed by Doug Wildey

Leading the primitive humans to their new home in New Valley, the travellers find the remains of a spaceship and meet its pilot Ron Brent.

Brent explains that he left on his space mission in 2019 and upon crashing on the planet, encountered Nova’s tribe, but they were separated by the occurrence of a natural disaster. Brent joins expedition to the new settlement as it tries to make it there before being captured by the pursuing Urko.

Urko is thwarted in his attempt to capture the humans when Hudson and Carter build a fortress around the settlement with the laser from their ship.

Attack from the Clouds
Written by Larry Spiegel. Directed by Doug Wildey

The astronauts must retrieve the P-40 fighter plane and use it to attack a giant mutant bird that has been attacking the humans at the New Valley settlement.

Mission of Mercy
Written by Larry Spiegel. Directed by Doug Wildey

Bill Hudson and Jeff Carter must travel to Ape City to retrieve some fuel to replenish the depleted reserves of the fighter plane.

While they are gone, Nova falls ill, Brent realising she will die if she is not treated within three days.

Judy flies to Ape City where Cornelius and Zira mix up a serum to fight the disease. However the plane has run out of fuel. Rendezvousing with Hudson and Carter, they manage to secure the fuel and make it back to New Valley to save Nova.

Invasion of the Underdwellers
Written by J. C. Strong. Directed by Doug Wildey

When a series of robberies occur in Ape City, suspicion falls upon the Underdwellers, but in reality the thefts are being carried out by General Urko and his soldiers in an attempt to frame the Underdwellers and so justify a full scale campaign to invade their territory.

Contacted by Krador for help, the three astronauts are able to help Cornelius and Zira to prove to Dr Zaius that Urko is in fact the one behind the robberies.

As a result, Zaius relieves Urko of his command.

Battle of the Titans
Written by Bruce Shelley. Directed by Doug Wildey

Convinced that is time to retrieve the book they left with the followers of Kigor on the mountain, Cornelius and Zira convince Bill Hudson to rebuild the balloon and undertake the journey back to Ghar.

Meanwhile, Urko’s successor, General Rotok launches a premature attack on the humans but he and his forces are driven back by Judy Franklin in the P-40.

On the way to the mountains, Hudson and Cornerlius are attacked by the monster bird, but manage to reach Ghar where they recover the book while Kigor the mountain god puts an end to the threat of the monster bird.

Cornelius and Hudson journey home, hoping to finally bring peace and unity to the Planet of the Apes.

– written by Peter Noble and Sandy