The Quest

Yes, this is worse than "Hardcastle and McCormick." Worse than "Sonny Spoon." Worse than even "The A-Team."

After Prince Charles and Diana's big wedding the previous year, royalty was on everyone's mind, including Cannell's, and so he concocted what was intended to be a light-hearted adventure series, but it ended up a light-headed mess.

"The Quest" (not to be confused with the 1976 Kurt Russell series) was about King Charles, monarch of a tiny European kingdom, who was at death's door and had no heir. For reasons best forgotten, he chose four American strangers and persuaded them to participate in an around-the-world "Amazing Race" style competition for the throne. The king chose the countries they traveled to by throwing a dart into a map. The second episode found them in a Hollywood simulation of Africa, complete with stereotypical cannibal tribes and headhunters (in 1982!).

There had to be a villain in such proceedings, of course, and so we had Count Dardinay, who claimed the throne as his and set out to destroy the contestants with a tenacity Wile E. Coyote would envy. Frankly, Dardinay would have made a better king than any of the Americans.

Cannell even threw in the usual catchy Mike Post theme song, whose lyrics have all the subtlety of a jackhammer: "Kings and queens/ It's a race for a place in the royal celebration/ Hopes and dreams /Shining like the jewels in a golden crown,/ Kings and queens/ It's the time of your life and you know it's all or nothing/ Just like kings and queens."

After only a handful of episodes, "The Quest" lost its quest for viewers, and it died a quicker death than King Charles.

I loved this show and I think it only aired about 4 episodes before it abruptly disappeared (seems to happen to the shows I like best - hmm...) I looked forward to it every week as it was on Friday nights and was the perfect kick back and relax and be entertained and be swept into another world where for an hour a week you could forget about reality! It was a real stress reliever! No point in describing it because others before me have done an excellent job, but...thanks to your comments I can show others I've told about the show that I'm not crazy!!! Now, does anyone know how we can get watchable episodes of this show?

I loved "The Quest", with its fantastical story line about 4 Americans who must prove their worthiness to inherit a kingdom. The best part was watching the chemistry between Karen Austin and Perry King, and the acceptance of teamwork with Ray Vitte and Noah Beery, Jr. The sweep and believability of John Rhys-Davies and the by-play with the King was also enjoyable to watch. I was very sorry to see it cancelled. I hope someday TV Land or Nick at Nite could put it on just so viewers could see just how magical and entertaining it was next to some of todays dreck!

One of the best series ever. And the theme song is one of my favorites.

If you dig around on search engines and the video sites, you may be able to find the beginning and ending of the pilot episode. The end theme, on that episode only, was an extended version.

There are so many junk series available on DVD, it's too bad that most people don't have exposure to Real TV.

The singer of the theme -- Lisa Lee -- who is she? By searching, I find several singers by that name. One may be Indian, one Welsh ... I'm not sure what else.

While you're using your search engine, check out the speech of an FCC guy, decades ago, where he referred to TV programming as a "vast wasteland." How far TV has degraded since then!

This short-lived series was superb -- and it had an equally short and wonderful theme song. Adventure, human interaction, royalty, a great prize -- what else could you want in a weekly TV series?

For action and actual story line, it's far superior to the drivel that wastes electricity these days.

(For those who don't understand the concept, let me explain: Some TV series used to have actual stories. Many of the stories were somewhat ... well ... unbelievable ... such as this one, but even so they beat the current slop of "reality shows" which are slightly less interesting than watching any random group of drunks at a bus stop.)

I would love to see this series on DVD -- or even the theme song on CD!