CEO of Roddenberry Productions Rod Roddenberry announced today that Roddenberry Productions has entered into a deal with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Television to develop the Gene Roddenberry pilot “The Questor Tapes.” The announcement was made at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame induction ceremony where Rod Roddenberry accepted the posthumous honor, presented by Seth MacFarlane, on his father’s behalf. [EDIT] Rod Roddenberry will develop project along with Roddenberry Productions COO Trevor Roth and Imagine Television’s President David Nevins and EVP of Development Robin Gurney. Team is currently in negotiations with writer, producer and show runner Tim Minear (Lois & Clark, The X-Files, Angel, Dollhouse) to produce.THE QUESTOR TAPES was originally a 1974 Gene Roddenberry-driven TV movie which was also a pilot. If memory serves, NBC had already green lighted a number of QUESTOR episodes before tensions between Roddenberry, NBC, and Universal imploded the whole shebang. The TV movie was aired, no series followed, and the concept slipped into history. There were several subsequent efforts to revive the idea, although none of them came to fruition. In THE QUESTOR TAPES, an android named Questor sets out to learn about his meaning, purpose, and locate his creator. In spirit, he's something of a successor to Spock in the original STAR TREK series, and very much a precursor of Data in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. Themes of self-awareness and self-actualization are evident in many Roddenberry projects (the first STAR TREK movie, for example). THE QUESTOR TAPES is one of several TV movie/pilots Gene brought forth in the 70s. SPECTRE starred Robert Culp as an occult investigator. PLANET EARTH and GENESIS II were two pilots for the same basic series - more or less about man displaced in time who has to help pull humanity back together again. This conceit was later resuscitated for ANDROMEDA, a Roddenberry branded show which drew its hero's name from GENESIS II & PLANET EARTH - Dylan Hunt.
