*PLANET OF THE APES - EPISODE TWO TV Series Script By Rod Serling UNPRODUCED

Description

This is a
vintage copy script
(not a vintage original script) from an unproduced television series version of
PLANET OF THE APES
. It was
written by Rod Serling
, who wrote the screenplay for the original 1968 feature film version of
Planet of the Apes
.
Consisting of two parts, this is
EPISODE TWO
, which consists of three acts in 63 pages on white stock that were 3-hole punched and bound with two brass brads without any covers. It is complete in overall very fine condition with light signs of wear along the last 2 in. of the left side of the title page; a small tear on the center off the right edge go the last page; and a very small stain on the bottom of the back of the last page. There are no missing pages, tears, other stains, or other flaws, nor are there any handwritten notations present within.
Rod Serling wrote a two-part script for episodes one and two of a
Planet of the Apes
TV series. The earliest dated TV script was
A Fallen God
, from March 2, 1973, and the production codes on the scripts seem to suggest this was written soon after Serling's script - both follow a "series concept" outline featuring Virdon, Kovak and Galen. Serling's script was a peculiar mixture of the TV concept, a very early script written by him for the original movie, and the plot of the second movie. It is significantly different to the filmed episode, although it does set-up the series scenario in line with the concept, and some of the ideas were carried over into Art Wallace's script for
Escape from Tomorrow
. The plot concerned Virdon and Kovak landing on a mysterious planet after a period of suspended animation (Kovak: "To age four weeks...while traveling almost six years...and to know that nothing we've left behind will be the same when we return...if we return"). The reason - to rescue or find a crew of missing astronauts (Virdon: "Somewhere - out there - are Taylor, Thomas, LaFever and Bengsten - or their remains. We're going to find them...or finish an epitaph for them." Here, the story begins to mimic that of
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
, while the names recall earlier ideas of Serling's: George Taylor is, of course from the first movie; John Thomas was the name of the central character in Serling's early draft script, subsequently changed to Taylor; Paul LaFever was also in the early script, the character later became John Landon - the other astronauts on that mission were Dodge and the deceased Blake). The continuity of this story is somewhat confusing, it's almost a sequel to his first script, which was revised heavily for the movie, rather than tying-in with any of the actual movies.