Rod Roddenberry Wants Brent Spiner To Be New ‘Questor’ Android February 11, 2010

Three weeks ago it was announcedthat Roddenberry Productions had entered into a deal with Imagine Entertainment to create a new pilot based on Gene Roddenberry’s "The Questor Tapes." A big question is: who should play the android at the heart of the show? If it were up to Rod Roddenberry, the new Questor would be played by Trek’s favorite android, Brent Spiner.

Spiner for Questor
Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod Roddenberry is working with Imagine TV on developing the new "Questor" pilot. In an interview with AirlockAlpha, Rod said that if he was asked, he would pick Brent Spiner, who played Data on Star Trek The Next Generation for seven seasons and in four feature films. Roddenberry noted:
Brent Spiner did a fantastic job as Data [in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation']. The character was an android, yet there was something very human about it. Perhaps it’s my inability to be creative. Brent Spiner is who I fall back to when I think of Questor. Spiner, whoturned 61 last week, has not e xp ressed any interest in the role. And Roddenberry admits that its likely Imagine and executive producer Tim Minear would be looking in a different direction. In the original 1974 "The Questor Tapes" TV movie pilot, the role of Questor the android was played by Robert Foxworth, who was 33-years-old at the time (Foxworth later appeared in multiple episodes of DS9 and Enterprise). It seems likely Imagine would look for a younger actor to lead the new “Questor” TV series, but a guest spot or recurring role for Spiner would be an interesting homage.

Foxworth in the original "The Questor Tapes"

More at AirlockAlpha from Roddenberry on Questor and his TrekNation documentary.



Questor Retrospective
If you want to learn a lot more about Gene Roddenberry’s original "The Questor Tapes," scifitvzone.com has an excellent retrospective, including cast and crew interviews.