After Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry Battled Second-Wave Feminism on Planet Earth

From 1969 to 1975, ABC put out weekly films. They functioned as TV pilots, testing grounds for up-and-coming filmmakers, and places for new and old stars to shine. Every month, Chloe Walker revisits one of these movies. This is Movie of the Week (of the Month).

How do you follow a TV show that changed the course of a whole genre? Well, if you’re Gene Roddenberry, and that TV show is Star Trek, the answer is: With difficulty. 

After The Original Series ended its three-season run in 1969, Roddenberry tried to distance himself from genre typecasting altogether by writing the screenplay to the sleazy 1971 Rock Hudson vehicle, Pretty Maids All in A Row. It was tepidly received, and rightfully so.

It didn’t take long for sci-fi to call him back. In 1973, he wrote and produced Genesis II, a pilot movie for CBS about 20th century scientist Dylan Hunt (Alex Cord), who wakes up from suspended animation to find himself in a “future primitive society.” Nobody was buying, but it wouldn’t be the last we saw of Hunt.

Next up was 1974’s The Questor Tapes, another pilot movie and another work of science fiction, about an android’s search for the man who created him. Although this one was actually taken to series, creative differences between Roddenberry and NBC led to the project being abandoned before any episodes were produced. 

Still, Roddenberry was nothing if not persistent. He took another shot just months after The Questor Tapes, repurposing many elements from Genesis II to create ABC Movie of the Week Planet Earth. 

Dylan Hunt (John Saxon) leads a group from the interplanetary peace force PAX to locate the only doctor capable of saving one of their critically injured team. The problem: This doctor was last seen on a planet ruled by The Confederacy of Ruth—a matriarchy who enslaves their men (amusingly referred to as “dinks”) and drugs them to keep them under its command. Dylan decides the best course of action is for him to go undercover as the prisoner of teammate Harper-Smythe (Janet Margolin). They put that plan into motion, but it isn’t long before events start spiraling out of control. 

There’s a charming shamelessness to the way Planet Earth so obviously sings from the hymn book of Roddenberry’s most famous creation. Between the precise mustard tones of the team’s uniform, the Captain’s Log narration, and the bombastic opening episode spiel, it often seems more like a rough draft of Star Trek than a follow-up.

While that iconic show at least had some genuine claims to progressiveness, Planet Earth’s approach to issues of gender is at best creaky, and at worst downright noxious. An early, bemused pondering from Saxon after hearing about The Confederacy of Ruth sums them up: “Women’s Lib? Or Women’s Lib gone MAD?” So much of Planet Earth can be seen as a panicked reaction to second-wave feminism, and the places many men fearfully imagined it leading; a matriarchy being preferable to a patriarchy was too “out there” an idea for even a sci-fi movie to handle. 

Despite the MOTW’s sexist underpinnings, there’s one person who endures by far the most objectification in Planet Earth, and it is not a woman. In two separate scenes (in the first he’s restrained, in the second he’s shirtless), women of The Confederacy of Ruth paw at Dylan’s body while talking about his “excellent lines” and their need for a “breeder.” Between those, he’s tied to a table as Marg (Diana Muldaur) purrs “I’ve more interesting things in mind for you…” Around 20 of the film’s 73 minutes are primarily dedicated to lusting over John Saxon, and that wavers between being hilarious, strange and uncomfortable (there’s more than one occasion where it seems like things might take an unfortunate turn, but thankfully they never do.)

Though the film’s misogyny is disappointing, its dogged commitment to fetishizing poor old Saxon makes it hard to take too seriously. That all the battle-of-the-sexes hoopla ends in an All Lives Matter kind of place (Saxon: “Women’s lib, Men’s lib, whaddya say we dump ‘em both? I’m for people’s lib!”) seems about right for a MOTW convinced that its terror surrounding what women would do if they were in control is only reasonable.

For all its faults, Planet Earth has one major thing working in its favor: The put-upon but indomitable presence of John Saxon. And boy, does this movie make him work. He has to be an earnest leader while delivering some truly ludicrous lines with a little bit of a wink. He has to retain his likability, at the same time as being the chief purveyor of the film’s dubious politics. He has to keep the whole thing buoyed with little help from a sleepy supporting cast (it’s only Diana Muldaur, as the villainous Marg, who gives him anything to play against). Not to mention contending with all that manhandling!

Saxon manages it all, and makes it look easy. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise—over a career that spanned more than 60 years and nearly 200 credits, Saxon proved again and again to be a master at elevating nonsense. In Planet Earth, his commitment to delivering the goods in the face of so much bad takes on an almost graceful quality. With just about everything working against him, he still manages to deliver a performance that’s charismatic, lively and engaging; he’s the film’s rising tide, lifting everything around him. Above anyone or anything else, it’s thanks to Saxon’s heroic commitment to his silly role that Planet Earth is more fun than frustrating. 

The movie’s closing narration grandly announces: “The 22nd Century. A reborn planet Earth. A thousand new adventures. This has been one of them.” Alas, it would be the only one we’d see; like its predecessors, and yet another ill-fated successor, Planet Earth was not brought to series. 

Roddenberry would eventually find the follow-up success he was longing for, under the banner that made him famous in the first place: He oversaw Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the inception of Star Trek: Voyager. He died in 1991, but Dylan Hunt (this time played by Kevin Sorbo) would live on in the 2000 Syfy show Andromeda. Based on notes Roddenberry had written during the ‘70s, the show would run two seasons longer than the original Star Trek.

While Planet Earth ultimately survives as little more than a speck of space dust amidst the vast Star Trek Expanded Universe, as a tribute to Roddenberry’s relentless determination—and a showcase for the miracles made possible by Saxon and his formidable charisma—it’s a valuable artifact. 

Chloe Walker is a writer based in the UK. You can read her work at Culturefly, the BFI, Podcast Review, and Paste.