QUARK revisited: Pilot
Can a space comedy make it in this cold, cruel universe?
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! On space station Perma One, base commander Otto Palindrome (Conrad Janis) learns that an explosion in a distant part of the galaxy has sent an enzyme cloud hurtling toward Perma One, which will not only destroy the station but most of the United Galaxy alliance. In consultation with The Head, which is a disembodied head with an enlarged cranium (Alan Caillou), Palindrome determines that a garbage scow commanded by Adam Quark (Richard Benjamin) is the only ship able to intercept the cloud. They send an emergency lasergram ordering Quark to detonate his ship’s reactor within the cloud. Unbeknownst to Palindrome and Head, however, the garbage scow has already blundered into the cloud. Andy, a cowardly, reality-addled robot (Bobby Porter) has fallen in love with the “load control box,” a red, robotish-looking device that manages the scow’s cargo of space garbage. Andy’s clumsy attempt at romance accidentally jettisons 200,000 tons of space garbage which the cloud changes course to consume, thus saving the United Galaxy.
SPOILER ALERT: The Quark pilot isn’t all that funny. And by “all that” I really mean “at all.”
SPACE BAGGIES! Here’s a shocker: Quark’s pilot aired May 7, 1977. Star Wars premiered May 25, 1977. Quark predated Star Wars by more than two weeks. I have always assumed that Quark was inspired by the mammoth success of Star Wars at the box office, but clearly that is erroneous. Or is it? I’m old enough to remember back when television networks would burn off the various pilots for shows they decided against taking to series during the summer “rerun season.” TV Guide would often just list them as “Pilot” on the weekly schedule with no additional information. May’s a little bit early, but I’ll bet $2 that NBC execs ordered the Quark pilot based on Buck Henry’s track record with the spy spoof Get Smart, only to change their minds when they saw this clunky, awkward assemblage of space gags. That would’ve been the end of it had Star Wars not burst upon the scene making all the money in the world. Suddenly anything with robots and spaceships was hot, and NBC immediately realized that Quark had both robots and spaceships. Quark would return almost nine months later as a midseason replacement.
SPACE JOKES! Quark’s biggest problem is that it just isn’t funny. That’s the biggest sin of a comedy. The timing is way off. What’s surprising is that this misfire is coming from Buck Henry, who’s work I’ve long admired for its wit and hilarity—all of which are missing here. Look, I loved this show as a kid, because it had a robot (ROBOT!) and a spaceship that ate garbage (HA HA! IT EATS GARBAGE!) but my standards have shifted a bit over the intervening years.
One of the recurring gags—at least I think it’s a gag—is to pepper the dialog with a lot of nonsensical sciency-sounding technobabble. Having Adam Quark patrolling the M-81 sector or swinging by the Magellenic Clouds to pick up space baggies could be an intentional mockery of the technobabble of Star Trek… but it doesn’t feel intentional in that regard. It feels like the writers (in this case, Henry himself) tossed it in arbitrarily because it sounded sciency. But they’re just random nonsense phrases that aren’t nonsensical enough in their own right to be funny. That’s what I find so puzzling—there isn’t any intention behind them.
That’s not to say there’s not potential here. Early on, when Palindrome is addressing a gathering of aliens, he brags on the bravery and competence of the Perma One crew, while behind him the control room descends into chaos as “DISASTER” flashes across the monitors. It’s a gag that would be right at home in the movie Airplane! just a few years later, but the timing’s off here and while it evoked a smile from me, it was more for the potential of the joke rather than the delivery. Adam Quark has an alien pet, Ergo, which appears to be a cylinder of clear cellophane with eyeballs stuck to either end. Ergo makes the beach ball alien from Dark Star look like cutting-edge CGI in comparison. Ergo clearly leans more murderous than domesticated, which could be a cute running joke but again, the timing’s off on all the gags here. Another briefly clever gag was the crew gathering for dinner and discussing the elaborate, gourmet meal in store, only to “ingest” the meal as a concentrated ball delivered via feeding tube. Sure, the Jetsons did it first but the setup here was evocative of Spaceballs a decade later. Another pair of bright spots are the Bettys, pilots of the ship and second in command to Quark. Played by identical twins Cyb and Patricia Barnstable, one is a clone of the other but they argue over who is the original. It’s an amusing joke that is bludgeoned to death by the 10 minute mark of the episode. Their skimpy outfits reduce them to the role of eye candy and their competitive romantic obsession with Quark (their commander) is kind of creepy. Kids today might call it cringe.
What is absolutely cringe, however, is Gene/Jean (Tim Thomerson), the ship’s engineer. A Transmute, Gene/Jean carries a full set of male and female chromosomes, a hermaphroditic concept that’s been used to good effect in science fiction—Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness comes to mind. This is not that. Gene/Jean flips randomly back and forth between the absolute worst stereotypes of men and women, with Gene enthusiastically ready to “Go kick some ass!” only to shift to effeminate Jean who worries, “But what if I break a nail?” With Thomerson being a male actor with no costuming, prosthetics or makeup to signal the feminine, his female persona is conveyed only through his acting, which has the unfortunate effect of evoking the absolute worst homosexual stereotypes. Adam Quark’s constant raised eyebrows and doubletakes at Gene/Jean’s transitions don’t help, nor does his species’ moniker of Transmute, which carries a lot of problematic connotations today that didn’t exist in 1977. His clothing is overtly masculine, which stands in stark contrast with the skimpy outfits of the Bettys. It’s bad folks. It’s worse than bad. This is the kind of role that today would end an actor’s career. It’s not even funny in a so-wrong-it-comes-around-the-other-side like Robert Downey Jr.’s blackface in Tropic Thunder. It is physically painful to watch. But Gene/Jean isn’t the worst misfire here. Instead, that dubious honor goes to O.B. Mudd, (Douglas V. Fowley), the research and equipment specialist. A cantankerous mad scientist type with an eye patch (he lost his eye when he fell asleep looking through his microscope) he spends his time tinkering on Andy the Robot, complaining about literally everything. Oh, and he’s overtly and blatantly homophobic. Look, I know it’s problematic to apply contemporary standards to entertainment from previous eras, but damn, there’s no other way to frame it. Mudd loudly declares “I don’t like Transmutes!” several times, picks a fight with Gene/Jean and demands a transfer because he refuses to serve on a ship with a Transmute on the crew. All of which is played for laughs. Since it’s implied that Adam Quark has commanded this crew for quite some time, one has to wonder how long this personnel conflict has simmered. Am I at fault for bringing reason and logic and consistent worldbuilding to a series that is clearly intended to be a platform for cheap laughs? Of course not. Clearly it’s Buck Henry who’s wrong. With Gene/Jean being gay stereotypes personified, it’s probably for the best that Mudd vanished from the series following the pilot. The irony is that the character displayed more personality than all the other characters combined.
One of the reasons I feel Get Smart worked so well is that for the most part, Maxwell Smart was the wacky centerpiece of the show while the rest of the regular cast played it straight. Chief and Agent 99 are not wacky, providing much needed context and contrast to the shenanigans that surround Max. Quark has no straight men. Every character is “wacky” and as a result none of them are funny. Replicating the Get Smart formula would give us a Palindrome and Head as thoughtful, intelligent straight men, ala Chief (played by Edward Platt in Get Smart) the long-suffering head of CONTROL who would like nothing more than to be rid of Max except for the fact that Max continually bumbles his way to success. In Quark, the titular character doesn’t even have that going for him. Adam Quark isn’t particularly wacky, or incompetent. He’s mostly befuddled, albeit well-intentioned. He’s dull. Things happen around him but not because of him. Honestly, his presence has no bearing on the resolution of the episode at all.
I like a lot of the ideas here, but this pilot episode feels like it was filmed for the sole purpose of being a tax writeoff (you know, like Heat Vision and Jack). I hope the series improves with later episodes, but I’m not holding my space breath.
QUARK revisited: Vanessa 38-24-36
QUARK revisited: All the Emperor’s Quasi-Norms, part 2
QUARK revisited: All the Emperor’s Quasi-Norms, part 1
QUARK revisited: Goodbye, Polumbus
QUARK revisited: The Good, the Bad and the Ficus
Oh boy... I, too, have fond childhood memories of this one... I loved pretty much ANY show with sci-fi trappings back in the day. I even picked up the DVD set of this one some years ago. But I somehow I just haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I'm thinking maybe there's a reason for that... my brain knows, man. My brain knows...