EDITOR’S NOTE: The Questor Tapes was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 11, 1978 at 11:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 6, 1981 at 1:00 a.m.
It’s hard to comprehend today, in a world where Star Trek never goes away, but at one point, Gene Roddenberry got rejected by the networks so hard he just kept inventing new sci-fi pilots. There was Genesis II, Planet Earth, Strange New World, Spectre and even an entirely new Star Trek that almost made it to air. Many of these became TV movies where we’d wonder, “What would happen if we got more?” Well, they’d probably be canceled after one season.
The Questor Tapes, a 1974 made-for-TV movie, is a Roddenberry pilot that almost got picked up.
According to The First Star Trek Movie: Bringing the Franchise to the Big Screen, NBC ordered a full 13-episode series before the pilot even hit the airwaves. Robert Foxworth and Mike Farrell were locked in to return and the network even slotted the show for Friday nights at 10 p.m. Yes, that meant dropping the sci-fi project directly into the infamous death slot where the original Star Trek had fought hard and been killed off years earlier.
Unfortunately, behind-the-scenes drama killed the project before it ever left the launchpad. Roddenberry fought both Universal and NBC over massive creative overhauls. The network wanted to scrap the big twist from the end of the pilot and completely write out Jerry Robinson, one of the show’s core characters. For Roddenberry, it was a bridge too far. He walked away from the project in disgust, and as a result, not a single episode of the planned series was ever made.
The TV movie begins when a brilliant Nobel laureate, Dr. Emil Vaslovik, vanishes, leaving behind the blueprints for a hyper-advanced superhuman android. A team of bumbling scientists accidentally wipes half his memory tapes while trying to decode them. Enter Questor (Robert Foxworth), a featureless mannequin who suddenly springs to life, puts on some skin and grabs reluctant scientist Jerry Robinson (Mike Farrell) to go find their missing maker.
If you ever wondered where Star Trek: The Next Generation got Data from, look no further. Questor’s deadpan logic and his knack for spotting loaded dice in a London club. Remember when Data banged it out with Tasha Yar, telling her that he was fully functional? That came from this movie.
Without spoiling the exact destination, Questor’s quest for an aquatic vehicle leads to a mind-blowing third act on Mount Ararat involving ancient Masters who have been guiding humanity since the dawn of time. It’s wild, theological pulp fiction at its finest. Or Erich von Däniken bullshit science. I know I would have watched it, but come on. You all know what a nerd I am.
You can watch this on the Internet Archive.
