Episode #04 - The Good Seeds

Air Date: 10/04/74 / Production #B-501    written by Robert W. Lenski    Directed by Don Weiss

As usual, the trio of fugitives are on the run, trailed by a trio of Urko's gorillas on horseback. At night, Galen takes a bad fall and injures his leg. Virdon & Burke are forced to carry him around on a litter, until they come to a farm. The farm is run by a father chimp (Lonny Chapman) who decides to take them in as free labor. Very soon, the new workers are showing the farmers new techniques, such as irrigation (Virdon lived on a farm when he was a kid). But, the elder chimp son (Geoffrey Deuel) is hostile and suspicious, made more so about his paranoia regarding acquiring a bull calf from a cow about to give birth; he thinks the humans will be bad luck (getting a bull is the first step in getting his own farm).  It doesn't help matters that the birth is premature and depends on Virdon's abilities to turn the baby calf.

Overall, the plot of this episode is markedly pedestrian and doesn't offer too much in excitement. At best, it's a 'Day on a Farm' ambiance, besides demonstrating that Virdon & Burke are close to geniuses compared to the typical ape in this region (even in so simple an endeavor as building a fence). The tension is from the older chimp son, who might turn the humans in to the gorilla patrols, and the comedy is from the younger son (Bobby Porter).  The ending is quite sappy and cheerful.  There is one intriguing element: the new techniques that the visitors leave with the farmers will apparently have permanent effect; will this spread to other farms or will this farm remain as the single advanced one? BoG's Score: 6 out of 10
Trivia of the Apes:
once again, Bobby Porter plays a boy chimp here, as he did in the first episode and in Battle For the Planet of the Apes (1973)