The Questor Tapes

This is one of my favorite films of all times.

An android is assembled from the instructions left behind by its designer. The team assembling it is made up of his assistant and a group of other cybernetics experts. The technology is highly advanced and no one is greatly surprised when the android fails to "activate" - just disappointed.

Later on in the film more comes out about the origins of the android and its "purpose" as defined by its creator. The conflict of the film is between man and machine, and man versus man. Perhaps the standard motivations apply. There is a very large-scale allegory as a backdrop to the main story that is eventually revealed. The android and its creator are not all that they seem. They are more than they appear to be.

The assistant is loyal, dutiful, and moral. Almost all the other people are not.

There is plenty of action as the assistant and his eventual partner struggle to do the right thing, and just survive.

There is nothing camp about the film and it is in no way a spoof of anything. It does have a lot of futuristic technology, at least in the lab. Pretty much what we would expect of the 21st century. Except maybe for magnetic "computer tapes": too old-fashioned today! They are already becoming an anachronism.

If you liked any of these films you will probably also like this one: Westworld, Futureworld, The Stepford Wives, or The Terminator - then you will probably like this one.

IMHO this is one of the best sci-fi TV movies ever. For once they gave Roddenberry some money and it shows up on the screen, particularly in the stirring climax which still works today. The plot is witty and features a few nice surprises. The performances are uniformly solid. In particular, Robert Foxworthy brings surprising warmth and depth to what was obviously the prototype to the DATA character from STTNG; it is probably the best acting job Foxworthy ever did, which is doubly impressive since he is supposed to be playing an emotionless android. In fact, he slips in plenty of emotion, but the insertions are subtle and well-handled. Mike Farrell (right before his own far more lengthy and lucrative insertion in MASH) is also at the top of his game as the humanistic scientist and guide for Questor. John Vernon, fresh off all those venomous villain roles from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, is reliably intimidating as the aggressive (but ultimately conscientious) antagonist.

Why does QUESTOR still resonate thirty years later? Frankly, because all of the questions about what makes man unique are only more relevant today with the advent of cloning and super microchips which make today's computers even more intelligent and capable than the fiction Roddenberry envisioned back in '73. Most of the things forecast in QUESTOR have come to pass from the creation of the internet to the polarization of the class system and symbiosis of the world economy. Man will always question his place / role in the universe and QUESTOR gets to that issue of self-awareness and "what is my purpose" as productively and entertainingly as any other sci-fi offering I can think of. It's also thought-provoking and while it momentarily lurches toward preaching at the end, somehow it all comes out just right.

So why didn't it make it to series? My hunch is that since ABC had already added THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN on their fall schedule the feeling was that QUESTOR was too similar (or "too cerebral," which was the reason the original Star Trek pilot didn't fly.) The truth is, it probably would have been difficult to maintain the quality of the pilot given the limited format. However, it would have been an interesting try and I think it would have probably been more insightful than THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. 9/10

The last time I saw Questor was probably twenty + years ago, but at that time I think it still held up well. It's amazing how many robots and androids came out in the years following the "Questor Tapes" with little Questor mannerisms, not the least of which was Data.

I have no doubt that if the series had been picked up we would have seen an "evil" Questor (Lore or KARR), lots of android type searching for meaning, maybe even a tie in to the Gary Seven "pilot" episode on Trek. Questor would have fit into the Trek universe really well, don't know why Gene never did a tie in on Next Gen. Heck, they could have done a tie in on Enterprise.

Oh well... I received a letter from Majel a few years ago indicating she was still interested in doing a Questor series, but that was the last I ever heard. Sadness.

-Dana Curtis Kincaid

One thing that Gene Roddenberry was good at was making excellent TV pilots. His only problem was in getting the networks to actually listen to them.

This movie was a pilot for a TV series, and was to far ahead of it's time. Made in the time after Star Trek TV series and the Star Trek motion pictures, it is a classic example of his idea of social commentary hidden as a Sci-Fi movie.

Questor is an android, in search of himself and his past. I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast, and again about 10 years later. But sadly, it is not available on Tape or DVD (NBC - Universal, pay attention).

Two things that are noteable are the connections to Star Trek, both past and future versions. His wife Majel Barrett and Walter Koenig both appear in this movie. But this is not unusual, if you look at most of his projects. Pretty Maids All In A Row, Genesis II, Planet Earth, even all the way back to The Lieutenant. Roddenberry consistantly used a lot of the same actors and actresses over and over again.

One of the things that struck me when I first saw Star Trek: Next Generation was the similarity between Data and Questor. An Android, in search of his mysterious past, a "father" creator that is said to be dead, yet is not dead, the question of who and what he is, man, machine, or both.

So this TV Pilot was just like the "Gary Seven" episode, in that it never took off. But the obvious influence on his later projects is obvious. We can only hope that someday, this will be made available on DVD so more people can discover this movie.

Considering all the "new" Roddenberry TV shows out there, I am actually surprised that this one has not been remade yet.

In his heyday, no one made televised science fiction like Gene Roddenberry, and this is one of the finest examples. Created as a pilot for a proposed TV series (which, unsurprisingly, was never produced), this is one of the best instances of science fiction meeting philosophy that has ever occurred anywhere (big screen included). The performances are astonishingly good considering the cast of mostly TV actors (in particular, Robert Foxworth gives the performance of his career as the android). The movie does steer itself away from its own track once in awhile (some of the details in the subplot about Helena Trimble hardly seem relevant to the film and were probably created in case the series was approved), but overall, the pacing is excellent. Some dated technology and an ear-piercingly poor musical score knock this down a notch or two, but its premise and resolution are wonderfully humanistic. Not a special-effects movie, then, but sci-fi that cares more for its characters than its visual appeal. Now could we please just have this on video?