QUARK revisited: May The Source Be With You
Definitely not a rip-off of a certain blockbuster movie
Quark was a half-hour science fiction comedy series created by Buck Henry which aired on NBC 1977-1978. I was eight years old when it aired, and thought it was the greatest thing ever. More than four decades later, I dare to ask the question, “Does it hold up?”
SPACE PLOTS! Space Station Perma One is in an uproar—the dreaded Gorgons, arch-enemies of the United Galaxy, have invaded with a giant magenta warship as big as a planet. Three captains on the station are given orders by the Head—one will evacuate Perma One, another will spirit away all research and secret tech, while Adam Quark, commanding his sanitation patrol garbage scow, will attack and destroy the Gorgon ship.
Quark rightly points out this is a suicide mission, at which point Otto Palindrome leads him to a secret chamber and presents him with the United Galaxy’s ultimate weapon—a disembodied, omnsicient power known as The Source.
Unfortunately, The Source (voiced by Hans Conried) is insecure, forgetful, easily distracted and easily offended. It repeatedly demands Quark prove his belief—once by deflecting his crew’s blaster fire with a large ball bearing, with predictable results. The garbage scow is captured and tractor-beamed onto the Gorgon ship. Leaving Andy on the bridge, Quark and his crew infiltrate the Gorgon ship in search of the power core. Gorgon soldiers confront Andy, demanding to know why a United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol ship would approach a Gorgon vessel, to which Andy responds with the best line of the episode: “There is not good or bad garbage. There is only garbage.” Andy is taken before the High Gorgon and immediately rats out his crewmates and their mission.
Elsewhere on the Gorgon ship, the garbage scow crew is separated. Quark locates the power core, which is suspended above a lava pit and guarded by a lava monster. Which is great, except for the fact that Quark has no explosives with which to set off a chain reaction. The Source is highly insulted and argues when Quark points out this was never mentioned earlier. Quark is blinded in a firefight with Gorgons, but The Source guides him out of the power core and to a holding cell where Ficus, captured earlier by the Gorgons, is being tortured via wilting under a heat lamp. With the aid of The Source, Ficus is able to jury-rig a bomb. On the way back to the power core, Quark and Ficus are trapped by a handful of Gorgons until Andy, in a fit of remorse for betraying his crewmates, charges the Gorgons, causing them to flee. Once the bomb is set, they reunite with the Bettys and Gene/Jean and return to the ship. The High Gorgon confronts them, but Quark, aided by The Source, ineffectually fights him long enough for the crew to escape. The High Gorgon’s morning star-armed hand gets stuck in a wall panel, allowing Quark to escape as well. Quark and his crew watch the Gorgon ship explode from the garbage scow, but a transmission reveals the High Gorgon escaped and holds Quark personally responsible for the destruction of his warship.
Back on Perma One, The Head rewards Quark with promotion to captain of a United Galaxy starship. Quark refuses unless his crew can join him. The Head says no and just like that, Quark is back to collecting space baggies.
SPACE BAGGIES! Okay, this episode lays bare why a failed pilot from the previous year got a new lease on life as a midseason replacement. The episode’s plot is a wholesale riff on Star Wars, which remained an unparalleled cultural phenomenon at the time. Scene after scene are taken directly from Star Wars, with Quark’s attempt to use The Source to deflect blaster fire echoing Luke’s initial lightsaber practice against the training remote.
And the Gorgon ship’s power core is an unmistakeable callback to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s scene where he shuts down the Death Star’s tractor beam. Obviously, Quark didn’t have the budget to recreate a bottomless shaft but I have to admit the lava monster is a nice (albeit weird) touch. I kept expecting a Gorgon trooper to fall into the pit and get eaten, but alas, that never happened.
As far as the Gorgons go, they’d be completely disposable villians were it not for the presense of Henry Silva. Can I get an “Amen”? Silva, Hollywood’s go-to bad guy from central casting, isn’t given a whole lot to do in the script but he does it with suitable melodrama. A poor-man’s Darth Vader, Silva has to make do with a fabric helmet and armor cobbled together from odds and ends in the costuming department. He’s got one good gag—instead of a right hand, his arm ends in a stump which various weapons can be attached. A morning star/mace may not be as cool as a lightsaber, but as far as SFX budgets go, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.
SPACE JOKES! Here’s the good news—”May The Source Be With You” is better (and funnier) than the pilot episode. The bad news is that it’s still not very good, and more jokes fall flat than stick. A huge (and possibly only) reason for the improvement in the show is the addition of Ficus, a plant-based Vegeton. Played wholly deadpan by Richard Kelton, Ficus is of course a spoof of Star Trek’s Vulcan, Mr. Spock. Ficus is a much-needed straight man amongst all the zany, wacky characters running around and offers somber, if silly, contrast. Take for example his philosophical discussion with Quark as the garbage scow moves to intercept the Gorgon warship:
FICUS: Nervous, Commander?
QUARK: What makes you say that?
FICUS: I’ve noticed that you animals have a tendency under high pressure to activate particular glands producing moisture and a very peculiar odor.
QUARK: You’re speaking of sweat, Ficus?
FICUS: I have heard that terminology used, Commander.
QUARK: And as a plant you do not sweat, do not feel nervous?
FICUS: Quite the contrary, Commander. We plants never feel pressure. The worst we do is wilt.
QUARK: Ah. As a plant you can never love.
FICUS: Yes, but as an animal you must endure the pain of love.
QUARK: That’s true, Ficus, but the pain of love is what makes love so endearing.
FICUS: Following your logic, Commander, the pain of a toothache makes a toothache endearing. The more painful, the more endearing.
QUARK: Grimaces and walks away.
Is it Billy Wilder-level witty dialogue? No. Heck, it’s not even Kevin Smith-level witty dialogue. But it’s a sign of life for a show that lacked even a heartbeat in the pilot. Likewise, Andy, while mostly annoying, lands a couple of solid gags. Not to ride this one into the ground, but “There is not good or bad garbage. There is only garbage.” spurred an actual laugh from me and I still appreciate the [earnest lunacy of that line. Also, after his uncharacteristic charge of a handful of Gorgon troopers, in each iteration of his retelling the number of Gorgons increases until the cowardly robot is single-handedly fighting off an entire division. Yes, the story is less funny each time it comes up, but at least it’s in character and character-derived humor is more substantial than just delivering punchline after punchline.
What doesn’t work? The Source is grows wearisome. An all-powerful universal force that is the ultimate weapon but is also an insecure coward? It sounds great on paper but his demands that Quark prove his faith over and over again becomes as tedious for the audience as it does for Quark. The one time The Source/Quark relationship actually works is at the very end of the episode, where Quark returns The Source to its holding orb. The Source is forlorn and a little afraid of the prospect of being put away for another 200 years or so, and Quark calmly talks him into it. It’s not really clear why The Source must be put away as it has proven to be not nearly as powerful and omniscient as billed, but the scene is surprisingly emotional regardless.
Also, Gene/Jean remains an uncomfortable walking gay joke. The Transmute is mostly in macho male mode throughout the episode, looking for a fight. He gets to recreate Captain America’s elevator fight from Winter Soldier, but being true to television, us viewers at home only get to see the setup and aftermath, not the fight itself. It’s not terribly funny or unfunny. It simply is. Likewise, the Bettys are tasked with alerting Perma One to the status of the mission—but they are forced to use a public pay phone (or Space Phone in this idiom). As their call is repeatedly delayed a long line of disgruntled Gorgons line up behind them, each wanting to make their own calls. To deflect suspicion, the Bettys (again, identical clones) pretend to not know one another. It’s a thin joke that wears thinner by the minute, but it’s the most the Barnstable twins have gotten to do in two episodes other than swoon over Adam Quark. Their main purpose continues to be in the role of eye candy, wearing skimpy outfits that show off legs and cleavage more than any acting ability. That’s unfortunate, but the same could be said for most of the 1970s.
Two episodes in and Quark still isn’t good, but it’s significantly less bad than the pilot. That’s progress, I suppose.
[Edit: One final trivia piece I forgot to include earlier. Andy the Robot had metallic clamps for hands in the pilot episode. This time out he had metallic mitten/gloves for hands. That’s called an aftermarket upgrade.]
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I remember well this series. I think the best line from this episode was "Is the Source dangerous?" "Only if it's on your side." After this, remaining episodes were mostly spoofs of individual Star Trek episodes. The writing was pretty bad, and it could only coast so far on those of us who liked watching the Barnstable twins.