Planet Earth is a 1974 American made-for-television science fiction film 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..." The film also stars Diana Muldaur, Ted Cassidy, Janet Margolin, Christopher Cary, Corrine Camacho, and Majel Barrett. Marc Daniels directed the film.
Plot
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 mutants known as the Kreeg. After a struggle, the PAX team manages to escape in a hyperloop subsurface shuttle, 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. To save his life he requires a bioplastic prosthesis to repair the damaged pulmonary artery sheared away by a Kreeg rifle shot.
PAX Team 21, led by Dylan Hunt (John Saxon), with members Baylok (Christopher Cary), Isiah (Ted Cassidy reprising his role from Genesis II), 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).
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.
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.
Cast
John Saxon as Dylan Hunt
Janet Margolin as Harper-Smythe
Ted Cassidy as Isiah
Christopher Cary as Baylok
Diana Muldaur as Marg
Sally Kemp as Treece
Johana De Winter as Villar
Claire Brennen as Delba
Corinne Camacho as Bronta
Majel Barrett as Yuloff
Jim Antonio as Jonathan Connor
Aron Kincaid as Gorda
John Quade as Kreeg Commandant
Rai Tasco as Pater Kimbridge
Sara Chattin as Thetis
Lew Brown as Merlo
Raymond Sutton as Kreeg Captain
Joan Crosby as Kyla
James Bacon as Partha
Craig Hundley as Harpsichordist
Robert McAndrew as First Dink
Bob Golden as Second Dink
Susan Page as Little Girl
Patricia Smith as Skylar (Uncredited)
Production
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. Planet Earth was intended to be a second pilot for Genesis II.