THE QUESTOR TAPES (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 3418 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-11-2010
Posting Date: 12-23-2010
Directed by Richard A. Colla
Featuring Robert Foxworth, Mike Farrell, John Vernon
Country: USA
What it is: Science fiction TV series pilot
When scientists undertake to reconstruct an experiment of a missing scientist (now believed dead), the end result is an android. The android embarks on a journey to find his creator to discover his purpose.
This is another one of Gene Roddenberry’s attempts to come up with a series after the demise of the original “Star Trek”. This is the one I would have most liked to have seen make it to a series, if for no other reason than to get an idea of just how it would manifest itself in that way; the pilot itself serves as mostly an introduction to the main characters and the premise, and probably wouldn’t have captured quite what the series would have been like. Some of the observations of the non-human android on the human condition are a bit on the cliched side, but some of it is quite fresh, and the movie has a number of interesting ideas. Still, as a series, I could see how it might have fallen into a certain pattern of predictability. I found Robert Foxworth’s performance as Questor quite striking.