1973’s “The Questor Tapes” was a way more fascinating failed pilot, though one can see the way it is perhaps a tricky promote. Robert Foxworth performed Questor, an android who was constructed beneath weird circumstances. It appears that evidently an excellent robotic engineer left behind directions on how one can construct a high-tech android, however solely left items of directions to sure teams. This was to guarantee that no single group of engineers was aware of the secrets and techniques of android-building. The inventor additionally left behind programming tapes that, due to an accident, had been partially erased.
The engineers constructed the android anyway, and provides him the programming tapes which have been bowdlerized by new programming. When the android, Questor, awakens, he goes on the lam and finds he should find his maker, or else a nuclear bomb secretly hidden in his stomach will explode (!). Questor, one would possibly word, could be very very like Information on “Star Trek: The Subsequent Era.” He’s naive and impassive, however occupied with humanity. Each Questor and Information, when introduced with a possible sexual scenario, announce that they’re “absolutely purposeful.”
The large twist on the finish of “The Questor Tapes” is that Questor’s inventor was additionally an android. Certainly, androids have been dwelling amongst people for millennia, positioned there by a mysterious race known as the Masters, and tasked with overseeing humanity and guiding them to peace.
Once more, themes of worldwide pacifism are baked into the “Questor” premise, with a pinch of Jack Kirby’s “Eternals” thrown in for good measure. Roddenberry deserted his present when the studio made too many adjustments with out his permission. The collection by no means got here to fruition consequently.
One can now see why Roddenberry needed a lot reign over “Subsequent Era.” He needed one thing that he might management, and that contained his unadulterated concepts. Fortunately, that collection was lastly a success.