Variety is reporting that the television department of Imagine Entertainment has signed with Roddenberry Productions to produce The Questor Tapes. Imagine is in negotiations to bring writer/producer Tim Minear (Dollhouse, Firefly, and Angel) into the project.
Variety describes The Questor Tapes as one of Gene Roddenberry’s long-lost projects, saying “It was originally a pilot about an android who searches for his creator and attempts to figure out his reason for being. The pilot never made it to series, but aired as a TV movie in 1974.”
Roddenberry CEO Rod Roddenberry said, “My father always felt that Questor was the one that got away. He believed that the show had the potential to be bigger than Star Trek.”
I loved THE QUESTOR TAPES; it was definitely the best of the 1970s Roddenberry SF pilots.
“One’s creator not sane? An interesting interrogative. How would you answer that question in your own case, Mr. Robinson?”
I would love to see the Questor Tapes pilot on dvd. Too bad Robert Foxworth is too old to reprise the part. Another pilot I’d love to be a series is The Norliss Tapes. That’s on dvd—unfortunately the clothing styles are hilariously bad (1970’s).
I vaguely remember the movie and think I liked it at the time but lots has happened since then. The whole “robot who wants to be a real boy (or something)” schtick has been done to death.
Look at BSG and now Caprica, for starters. I don’t see much hope for this idea now.