Planet of the Apes: The Good Seeds

Astronauts need to know their physics and engineering. Yet, since most of them have military aviator backgrounds, they are more likely to be the children of farmers than elite college professors. Alan Virdon is a perfect example. He knows his way around spacecraft and a working farm. The latter will come in handy during “The Good Seeds” (directed by Don Weis), the Planet of the Apes episode that premiered fifty years ago on this very day.

After all that training for G-forces, Virdon and Burke are in a great shape. In contrast, their chimpanzee friend Galen was a scholar, not an athlete. Not surprisingly, he twists an ankle while eluding a police patrol. Reluctantly, Polar, a gruff old share-cropper agrees to shelter them, but his eldest son Arto is not happy about it.

According to local custom, the family cow must give birth to a bull before Arto can lease his own farm. Of course, he assumes the humans will exert an unhealthy influence. However, Polar is quite impressed by Virdon’s irrigation and terraced farming recommendations. Clearly, the astronaut’s advice could boost his profitability and sustainability to an exponential degree. Nevertheless, the twitchy Arto bears close watching.

Although “The Good Seed” was the fourth episode to air, it happened to be the first one produced. Notably, this episode presents humanity in a much better light than its predecessors. Instead of bemoaning all our warmongering and tribalism, writer Robert W. Lenski finally gives us credit for our ingenuity. Instead, it is the apes who are mired in superstition and hidebound tradition, to their own detriment. (It is still way too early to start organizing to take back our planet.)

Although Galen’s injury has Roddy McDowell sidelined for most of the episode, it serves as an excellent showcase for Ron Harper’s Virdon, who has some rather touching moments remembering his family and his childhood back on the farm. Unfortunately. Burke makes a somewhat outdated reference that would have the Disney content censors clutching their pearls, but normal, healthy people will just roll their eyes and forget about it.

In fact, the themes of family, as expressed by Harper and exemplified by Polar’s clan, make this a notable and enduring episode. Indeed, Lonny Chapman (the restaurant owner in Hitchcock’s The Birds) is one of the best ape guest-stars yet, both in terms of the range of his performance and his embrace of his simian nature.

You can even learn a little bit about soil erosion from “The Good Seeds,” but it probably does not provide sufficient veterinarian lessons to deliver a breached calf after watching it. This was a solid series that most of the country was sleeping on at the time—and “The Goods Seeds” was one of its strongest episodes yet. Highly recommended, “The Good Seeds” first aired 50 years ago today (10/4).