If you're old enough to have seen Star Trek during its original run in the 1960's, you probably followed Gene Roddenberry's career through the 1970's, and if so, you might have had a peculiar moment of recognition when Data was introduced in the 1980's. During the first regular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Naked Now," when Data declared he was "fully functional," did you happen to exclaim, "Aha — Questor!"?

Well, some of us certainly did. Android characters are not uncommon in science fiction, but those who saw Roddenberry's TV movie "The Questor Tapes" way back in 1974 probably recognized distinct attributes of Questor that were used in Data. And why not, considering the series that was planned to revolve around the "Questor" character was dropped, never to see the light of day again.

Or would it? The disappointment of seeing his creation go the way of Apollo or Gorgan after failing to resolve differences with the studio in charge left Roddenberry a bad taste in his mouth over Questor, and he considered the whole premise dead and buried. But there was one producer involved with the project who never lost his passion for the Questor concept, and is now on track to realize that vision once and for all.

Herbert Wright, a producer and writer on Next Generation whose relationship with the Star Trek creator goes back to the 70's, has secured the rights from the Roddenberry family to finally bring Questor to fruition after 30 years. And he, along with his creative team, are currently engaged in reconceptualizing and contemporizing the project, while staying faithful to Roddenberry's original notes and the original pilot script written by him and Gene L. Coon. They could even go into production as early as this fall.

Wright and his partners went public for the first time about Questor at the recent Grand Slam "Sci-Fi Summit" convention in Pasadena, where they occupied a table next to Lincoln Enterprises/Roddenberry.com and passed out flyers promoting the furtive android as "Our Last Hope For the Future" (right). In fact, this very weekend in Germany, Eugene Roddenberry Jr. — the son of the Great Bird who is known familiarly as "Rod" — is himself talking up the project at the FedCon convention in Bonn. Rod is throwing the full weight of his family name behind Wright, and has even provided a point of contact through his Web site with the e-mail address questor@roddenberry.com. (A more definitive Web presence is currently under construction.)

"What I saw in his character comforted me"

"Herb worked on Next Generation, and I knew his name and heard good things," Rod said. "When I started meeting with him and discussing Questor with him, what I saw in his character comforted me. He seemed more interested in preserving my father's philosophy as opposed to filling it up with his own agenda. I felt he'd do the property justice, and do the fans justice. I support him 100 percent." Rod emphasized that currently this is the only Gene Roddenberry-titled project that he is behind or actively involved with in any way.

Besides announcing to sci-fi fans that "Questor is alive and kicking and about to make a big splash," Wright was at Grand Slam also to talk to people and learn who out there may have Questor-related materials in their collections, such as unproduced scripts or story outlines, that they might have gotten from a convention dealer or similar source. Most of Wright's files from that era were destroyed in storage by water damage, and he is now trying to bring everything back together again, "so we can follow the path Gene started 30 years ago," he says. It so happens this very reporter had in his own collection of sci-fi memorabilia the complete Questor Writer's Guide written by Roddenberry in 1973 — acquired through mail order from Lincoln Enterprises before Rod, its current chief, was even born — which Wright was previously lacking and is now using as a basis for the new "series bible" (the document which outlines the show's premise, characters, etc.). And Wright believes there are as many as 14 episodic scripts floating around that he'd like to track down. (The Roddenberry family and Lincoln Enterprises no longer have any of those materials, and if they do, it's buried deep in storage somewhere.) If you have something you think might be helpful to the reincarnation of Questor, Wright says he would like to hear from you — write him at questor@roddenberry.com.

To give you some background, "The Questor Tapes," produced at Universal, aired on NBC in 1974 and was intended as a pilot for a new series called Questor. It was to be a chronicle of an android living among humans in contemporary times, indistinguishable from a real person (unlike the pasty-skinned yellow-eyed Data), who was the last in a long line of androids placed here by an alien race to serve as something of a guardian angel for humanity and quietly further its evolution. Like the movie, the series was to star Robert Foxworth as Questor and Mike Farrell as his human confidant Jerry Robinson. (Foxworth, by the way, went on to appear in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as "Admiral Leyton" in "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost," and Wright is talking to him about making an appearance in the Questor remake.) The TV movie also included appearances by Majel Barrett, Roddenberry's wife, as well as Walter Koenig.

"Thinking" kind of science fiction

The commencement of this revitalized project brings full circle a promise made to Wright three decades ago on the Universal Studios lot, when he was set to join Questor as a producer until suddenly it all fell apart. A Yale film school graduate in 1969 and sci-fi aficionado, Wright started out in the mailroom at Universal and worked his way up through Business Affairs into an associate producer position on Night Gallery. He eventually became a producer on The Six Million Dollar Man, which he was excited about, but came to feel the show "wasn't really the best 'thinking' kind of science fiction like Heinlein and Bradbury — it was more run-'n'-gun action." Wright read some of the materials that passed his way on "Questor Tapes," and he snuck in to watch some of the dailies (production footage) from the movie. "I thought, ooh, I really like this concept, this is cool. This was about something, something I could really get behind." So he got Roddenberry on the phone and told him he wanted to work on his series. After seeing some of Wright's writing samples, Roddenberry agreed to bring him in, so Wright worked things out with the Universal executives to let him swap shows. "I got word on a Wednesday or Thursday that that was cool, I could transfer over. So I threw some stuff into boxes, went home that weekend, and came back in on Monday to go over and let Gene know I'll be moving in. And his offices were cleaned out, his parking space name on the curb was painted over, and I got no answer on the phone. I finally reached him at home and he said, 'It's over with, it's not happening — I walked.'" Wright contacted an executive, who confirmed with him that Roddenberry had a major falling out with the studio. "And Questor was dead. Going nowhere fast. And I'd already quit my job!"

Disappointed and burned out, Wright left for an extended vacation, then came back to write, direct and produce a number of projects at various studios, including the TV shows Hunter and Stingray. "And over the years, I would fondly look at my files and my notes on Questor, thinking, God, it would've been a great show, just a great show. And then out of the blue I got a call from Gene's office asking, 'Would you come on and help me do Next Generation?'" By sheer luck, around 1986 Roddenberry came across a Western script Wright had written, and loved it, saying that since Trek was originally sold as "Wagon Train to the Stars," he was certain Wright could write TNG as well. Later Wright reminded him of their earlier albeit brief connection at Universal, "and he laughed and said, 'Well, guess you and me were meant to work together, eh?'"

So when Wright began meeting with Roddenberry over the infant new Star Trek series, "we were talking about characters and stuff, and we were talking about doing this android. So I said, 'Are you thinking Questor?' He said, 'Of course I'm thinking Questor!' I said, 'Great, but — how much of this do you want to use in Data, because if we end up using this in Data, if we're ever going to revive Questor—' He says, 'Forget Questor, Questor's not gonna happen.' I found myself sitting there pitching Gene on his own show! I told him, 'You can't let Questor go!' 'No, no, forget that, let's just worry about this.'"

"That's what Questor would've done!"

"But a lot of what he wanted to do originally in Questor, he transposed for Data — the whole 'Pinocchio' angle, the walking encyclopedia not that aware of the human condition, and so forth ... sometimes Data would miss the obvious the same way Questor would... I remember a scene I wrote where Data's at the conference table [in "The Last Outpost"] ... and he's got a Chinese finger puzzle that he's almost tearing apart — he doesn't know that sometimes just letting go will give you exactly the way out of a situation ... and I remember Gene saying to me when he read it, 'That's what Questor would've done!'"

After the first season of TNG, Wright moved to another Paramount show at the time, a TV series version of "War of the Worlds," but in 1990 he renewed contact with Roddenberry. "I brought up Questor again, and he said the same thing, which is, 'Look, someday, it might be right to do it. And I hope you're the one to get to do it! But right now, I've got enough on my plate...'" By that time Roddenberry was seriously ailing. Wright returned to TNG for the fifth season in 1991, and only a few weeks later Roddenberry passed away.

Several more years went by, during which Wright worked with Majel on a project called "Mars and Beyond" (for his Web venture called Cyber Sci-Fi Network). A couple of years ago he was visiting Majel and Rod at their home, and he said, "You know, this project, I can't leave it alone! Questor—can we talk about doing Questor?" All the rights to the property had been returned to the Roddenberry family at that point. And by sheer coincidence, Wright found out some other filmmaker friends of his — including the director and a producer on the current smash hit "Anger Management" — were also big Questor fans and were as passionate as he was about the idea of bringing it back to life. So with these new partners and with all the legalities and contracts worked out, Wright has now been granted the right to produce Questor.

"I think I'm ready for Questor, and Questor's ready for me"

"It's finally a reality! Majel has blessed me and my partners to go off and make this thing happen. I've had to wait a LONG time to do this project, I've had a lot of time to think about it, and I've had a lot of life that I've lived in the last 30 years that I can bring to bear on these stories. I think I'm ready for Questor, and Questor's ready for me."

But what directions can this character go, now that "Data" has already been done? "Even though he will certainly share traits with Data — his interest in humanity, his obviously tremendous intelligence — Questor will carry a deep spiritual wisdom. Think 'Data meets the Dalai Lama.' We'll be staying on Earth, so we can deal with things that could never be touched upon in TNG by Data. We want to make people think, make people ask questions, about their lives today." Also, just in terms of production value, "The reality is, the Questor of 30 years ago was not nearly the Questor of today. There are opportunities to visualize things with this character today which we could never do with Data, things that are now more technically and financially feasible. We can show him to be this extremely advanced machine created by a higher intelligence, and not just because we say so — you will see it, you will hear it, you will feel it."

Things are moving fast, and Wright is quickly assembling his Questor team. His creative partners are producer Michael Ewing and director Peter Segal, who have worked together on several movie and TV projects including "Anger Management," Hidden Hills, the "Naked Gun" sequels, etc.; and Michael Hamilton-Wright (no relation), a writer-director currently working on a TV project based on the book "Chariots of the Gods." Majel will be listed as executive producer, and Rod will be creatively involved, though no specific role or title has been decided yet. Wright also plans to bring back some of his old cohorts from TNG, including key production staff. "The people who made Next Generation great, we'll be borrowing to make this great."

No specific distribution outlet has been determined yet, whether it be network or cable. "We're thinking about the ramifications of all that. We don't want to limit our audience, but we also don't want to limit our subject matter either." But Wright is already planning the first two-hour episode, to be directed by Segal — which to some degree will be a remake of "Tapes" though modernized — and if certain financial arrangements come together, it could come out in theaters as a limited-release feature. However the show is presented, though, Wright additionally intends to "expand" the experience with a Web presence that will offer "extra clues and extra information and extra scenes," as well as online games and role-playing activities.

So it's a very ambitious undertaking, and a lot of uncertainties still exist (which is the norm in Hollywood), but the man now charged with the task of fulfilling an idea laid out decades ago by a great visionary believes it'll all come together ... because it has to. "A long time ago, trying to make sense of everything, I sort of realized at one point: life is perfect whether you like it or not. When something's at the right time, it's hard to stop it. When something's the wrong time, it's almost impossible to get it off the ground. Questor has been sitting there for over 30 years, waiting for the right time and place. The reason we're saying let's do this now is, it's really time for this kind of character."

"Ultimately, we are all looking for the answers to the questions which have troubled mankind since the beginning of time — who are we, what is life all about, are we alone... and in this series, Questor will be there, helping us find those now very necessary answers. That is why, with time running out on Earth, that Questor is 'Our Last Hope for the Future.'"

Do you remember "The Questor Tapes"? Are you looking forward to the new series? Talk about it at Star Trek message boards!