Gene Roddenberry pilot gets a deal

Project based on "The Questor Tapes"
By James Hibberd
Jan 21, 2010


The son of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry has struck a deal to try to bring one of his late father's forgotten projects to TV.

Rod Roddenberry has formed an agreement with Imagine Television to develop "The Questor Tapes," which is based on a 1974 Roddenberry pilot that ultimately aired as a TV movie.

The team is in negotiations with Tim Minear ("Dollhouse," "The X-Files") to produce.



"My father always felt that 'Questor' was the one that got away," Rod Roddenberry said. "He believed that the show had the potential to be bigger than 'Star Trek'."


The original "Questor" is about an android with incomplete memory tapes who searches for his creator and his purpose.

Roddenberry will develop the project along with Trevor Roth and Imagine Television's President David Nevins and executive vp of development Robin Gurney.


The announcement was made at the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame induction ceremony where Roddenberry accepted the posthumous honor, presented by Seth MacFarlane, on his father's behalf.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i8b915a0bf4d2e5a7546e5cedff62ac19

Cool!
Let's hope that what happened to it in 1974 doesn't happen again.

For those that don't know, the pilot was given the go-ahead by the network (CBS) but they wanted to make some changes to it. At the end of the pilot, the android found his creator and found out what his purpose was, just before he died. CBS wanted to ignore that ending, shorten the title to "QUESTOR" and make it into a "man on the run" show (like "THE FUGITIVE" or something). Since Gene Rodenberry had just finished "STAR TREK" a few years earlier where he had to put up with similar network interference, all that was still fresh in his mind and he didn't want to go through it again, so he dropped the whole thing. The pilot was shown as a TV movie over the summer and was never heard from again
CBS replaced it with a HORRIBLE series based on the "PLANET OF THE APES" movies which was, mercifully, short-lived.

"THE QUESTOR TAPES" was made into a book, however. It hasn't been in print for years, though so your best chance at finding it would be E-bay or something.