It is the year 2133, and Earth was devastated by a nuclear war decades earlier. A team from PAX is conducting a survey of central California. PAX is a science-based society dedicated to restoring civilization and peace to the world.[2]
Returning to PAX headquarters, the team is attacked by a group of militaristic mutants known as the Kreeg. After a struggle, the PAX team manages to escape in a hyperloop-like subshuttle, a vehicle that can travel between settlements via tubes underground, built during the early 1990s before the final conflict of the 20th century. One of the team, Pater Kimbridge (Rai Tasco), is severely wounded. To save his life he requires a bioplastic prosthesis to repair the damaged pulmonary artery sheared away by a Kreeg rifle shot.[3]
PAX Team 21, led by Dylan Hunt (John Saxon), with members Baylok (Christopher Cary), Isiah (Ted Cassidy reprising his role from Genesis II (film)), and Harper-Smythe (Janet Margolin) tries to locate a missing doctor, Jonathan Connor (Jim Antonio), the only surgeon who can perform the delicate surgery in time. Their search leads the team to the Confederacy of Ruth, a society of latter-day Amazons, where women are dominant and men are enslaved.
As a ruse, Harper-Smythe binds Hunt and enters the Confederacy's territory with him as her "property". Once there, she meets Marg (Diana Muldaur), the leader of the women, who claims Dylan as her own property. Harper-Smythe makes her way to a nearby farm and meets a woman who explains how the society operates (and how there are fewer and fewer children).[3]
While captive, Hunt learns that the men (referred to as "Dinks") are subjugated by a drug in their food. Despite his efforts, he soon succumbs to the effects of the drug. Harper-Smythe arrives at the village in time to reclaim her "property" by challenging and defeating Marg. When Harper-Smythe is unable to find Connor in the village, Marg invites her to see Marg's newcomer Dinks. Connor comes forward with an antidote for the drug and Hunt recovers. Connor, Hunt and Harper-Smythe decide that she should swap Hunt for Connor, allowing the doctor to return to PAX. Marg agrees to the exchange and Connor and Harper-Smythe leave for PAX after first distributing the antidote in the Dink food supply. That evening, free of the influence of the drug, Hunt seduces Marg.[3]
In the morning, a small party of Kreeg arrive and demand the secret to making men compliant. Hunt leads the un-drugged men in overpowering the invaders. They learn the men in the other households were equally successful in fending off the Kreeg. As a result, the women's council decides to suspend the drug treatment program on their males. Kimbridge soon recovers from the operation.[3]
Planet Earth was the second attempt by Roddenberry to create a weekly series set on a post-apocalyptic future Earth. The previous pilot was Genesis II, and it featured many of the concepts and characters later redeveloped and mostly recast in Planet Earth.[2]Planet Earth was intended to be a second pilot for Genesis II.[8]
A third and final movie, Strange New World, was aired in 1975. This movie also starred John Saxon as Captain Anthony Vico. In this movie a trio of astronauts returns to Earth after 180 years in suspended animation to locate the underground headquarters of PAX and free the people placed there in suspended animation.
None of these three pilots was ever developed into a series; however, some of the characters served as prototypes for the later TV series (based on Roddenberry's ideas), Andromeda.[9][unreliable source?] Most notably, the lead character of Andromeda was also named Dylan Hunt.
Reception
Critical response
An example of what Time Magazine's movie critic Richard Corliss refers to as Hollywood's use of a blonde vs brunette polarity, dark haired Harper-Smythe fights her blonde nemesis, Marg, the Amazon leader.[10]
In the years since the movie’s release, many critics have focused on comparing the movie to other Roddenberry works, especially Star Trek.[3][11] In a three-way comparison between the earlier Genesis II, Planet Earth and Star Trek, Saxon’s character was considered closer to Star Trek’s Captain Kirk in that he shared the same "physical beauty" and "charming arrogance" as Kirk, compared to the dark, brooding star of Genesis II, played by Alex Cord. Saxon's fighting skills were also complimented by critics, "... you have to love Saxon delivering a full-on Captain Kirk drop-kick to a Kreeg."[11] Janet Margolin has also been compared favorably to some of the female characters in Star Trek, including Yeoman Colt, featured in the first Star Trek episode "The Cage".[11] Along with Muldaur, Margolin's fighting skills were also noted by critics as the sight of two barefoot women, one a fair, blue-eyed blonde and the other an olive skinned, dark-eyed brunette, fighting each other while wearing halter tops and slit skirts barely covering their bikini briefs, was difficult to ignore.[11]
Marc Daniels brings professional polish and brisk pacing to the telefilm and the action sequences are very nicely-staged. Aside from the encounters with the Kreeg, there's a very well-done catfight between Muldaur and Margolin where it's clear that the two actresses are doing much of the stuntwork themselves."[9]
Another fight scene, between the characters Harper-Smythe and Treece, was notable for taking place in front of Treece's children. The fight ends with the dark haired Harper-Smythe bringing her blonde opponent to her knees, unaware that the children are watching until they step forward, crying. Harper-Smythe, embarrassed, releases Treece and apologizes to the children for fighting their mother.[11]
This mirrors a scene in Genesis II in which the shock wave from a nuclear explosion Hunt has triggered strikes a Pax lookout just as a mother has brought her young children out to see the stars. There and in the Planet Earth scene, the heroes witness the effect of their own violence on children, forcing them to rethink the use of force—a very effective and intelligent pacifistic touch from Roddenberry.[11]
Release
Planet Earth aired April 23, 1974, on ABC.[12] The film was released on DVD on November 16, 2009, by WBTV.[13]
