1973’s “The Questor Tapes” was a much more fascinating failed pilot, although one can see how it might be a tough sell. Robert Foxworth played Questor, an android who was constructed under bizarre circumstances. It seems that a brilliant robotic engineer left behind instructions on how to build a high-tech android, but only left pieces of instructions to certain groups. This was to assure that no single team of engineers was privy to the secrets of android-building. The inventor also left behind programming tapes that, thanks to an accident, were partially erased.
The engineers built the android anyway, and give him the programming tapes which have been bowdlerized by new programming. When the android, Questor, awakens, he goes on the lam and finds he must locate his maker, or else a nuclear bomb secretly hidden in his abdomen will explode (!). Questor, one might note, is very much like Data on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” He is naive and emotionless, but interested in humanity. Both Questor and Data, when presented with a potential sexual situation, announce that they are “fully functional.”
The big twist at the end of “The Questor Tapes” is that Questor’s inventor was also an android. Indeed, androids have been living among humans for millennia, placed there by a mysterious race called the Masters, and tasked with overseeing humanity and guiding them to peace.
Again, themes of worldwide pacifism are baked into the “Questor” premise, with a pinch of Jack Kirby’s “Eternals” thrown in for good measure. Roddenberry abandoned his show when the studio made too many changes without his permission. The series never came to fruition as a result.
One can now see why Roddenberry wanted so much reign over “Next Generation.” He wanted something that he could control, and that contained his unadulterated ideas. Luckily, that series was finally a hit.
