Planet of the Apes Logo 'Escape From Tomorrow'
(Story Code 'B503')

by Art Wallace
Planet of the Apes Cast

In 1988, a spaceship crewed by three astronauts blasts off from Earth on a mission to the stars. But on the return approach, the ship encounters a time warp and is sent hurtling thousands of years into the future, crash-landing on Earth in the year 3085. One of the crew is killed, but the survivors, Alan Virdon and Pete Burke, are rescued by a friendly old man, who takes them back to his home before they can be captured by the planet’s new rulers: the apes. News of the wreckage is reported back to the apes’ leader, orang-utan Doctor Zaius, who gives orders to locate the astronauts and bring them to him for questioning; however, his decision is challenged by General Urko, a gruff gorilla who wants to ensure that the spacemen are killed in order to prevent them influencing the meek human population. After Zaius sends his young chimpanzee assistant Galen along with Urko to capture the astronauts, Virdon and Burke are taken prisoner, but the old man who gave them shelter is killed. While Zaius makes plans to interrogate the two humans, Urko hatches a plan to set them free, so that he can then kill them as escaping prisoners. Unware of the danger, Virdon and Burke realise that their only hope of returning to their correct time lies in a magnetic data disc inside their ship – but can they convince Galen to help them escape and retrieve it before Urko has the spacecraft destroyed..?

Roddy McDowall (Galen), Ron Harper (Alan Virdon), James Naughton (Pete Burke), Booth Colman (Zaius), Mark Lenard (Urko), Royal Deno (Farrow), Bobby Porter (Aron), Woodrow Parfrey (Veska), Biff Elliot (Ullman), Jerome Thor (Proto), William Beckley (Grundig)

Directed by Don Weis
Produced by Stanley Hough
Executive Producer Herbert Hirschman


TX (US): 13th September, 1974

Notes:
*Introducing Alan Virdon, Pete Burke, Galen, Doctor Zaius and General Urko