Planet Earth (TV pilot)

Planet Earth
DVD release of the TV movie
Written by	Gene Roddenberry Juanita Bartlett
Directed by	Marc Daniels
Starring	John Saxon Diana Muldaur Ted Cassidy Janet Margolin Christopher Cary Corrine Camacho Majel Barrett
Theme music composer	Harry Sukman
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Gene Roddenberry
Cinematography	Archie R. Dalzell
Running time	74 mins
Distributor	Warner Archive
Release
Original release	April 23, 1974

Planet Earth is a science fiction television movie that was created by Gene Roddenberry, written by Roddenberry and Juanita Bartlett (from a story by Roddenberry). It first aired on April 23, 1974 on the ABC network, and stars John Saxon as Dylan Hunt. It was presented as a pilot for what was hoped to be a new weekly television series. The pilot focused on gender relations from an early 1970s perspective. Dylan Hunt, confronted with a post-apocalyptic matriarchal society, muses, "Women's lib? Or women's lib gone mad..."

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 in Planet Earth. Sets and props from Genesis II also found their way into Planet Earth.

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.

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. Returning to PAX headquarters, the team is attacked by a group of militaristic, mutant humans known as the Kreeg, whose commandant is played by character actor John Quade. After a struggle, the PAX team manages to escape in a subshuttle, a vehicle that can travel between settlements via tubes, built during the early 1990s, before the final conflict of the 20th century. One of the team, Pater Kimbridge (Rai Tasco), is severely wounded and, to save his life, requires a bioplastic prosthesis to repair the damaged pulmonary artery sheared away by the Kreeg's rifle shot.