Timing's everything. If the Quark pilot had premiered just three weeks later back in the Spring of 1977, who knows? An instant cult classic before it even ended its sad little seven episode network run back in 1978, Quark - The Complete Series comes back to life via this Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's bare-bones, single-disc release. Fans (quite a few of them Star Trek enthusiasts) who have kept Quark's memory alive for over thirty years will love seeing these funny episodes again, but the lack of even one Quark-related extra will probably alienate those same viewers who have become obsessed with this daffy little show.

Since the pilot episode differs from the resulting series, I'll give a brief synopsis of the regular series, and mention how it varies from the Buck Henry-penned pilot further down in the review. Set in the year 2222, Adam Quark (Richard Benjamin), captain of the interstellar garbage scow, the United Galaxies Sanitation Patrol Cruiser, scours the Milky Way, seeking out...space baggies full of trash. Relegated to the most prosaic of United Galaxy duties, Quark longs for adventure and excitement as the captain of his own star cruiser, but for now, cleaning up other people's mess is his main assignment - that is, until "The Head" starts giving him more dangerous assignments (often by default, since no one else is out in the middle of nowhere more often than Quark), missions that Quark often lucks his way into completing.

Aiding Quark in his unconventional missions are his, to say the least, unconventional crew members. Ficus Pandorata (Richard Kelton) is the ship's science officer, an emotionless Vegeton (plant humanoid) who engages in endlessly convoluted philosophical discussions with Adam. Betty One and Betty Two (Cyb and Patricia Barnstable) are the gorgeous navigators and pilots of the ship. One of the Bettys is a clone (both of them deny it), and both are in love with Adam - only Adam can't determine who the "real" Betty is, and thus, keeps his distance. The ship's engineer is Gene/Jean (Tim Thomerson), a "transmute" with a complete set of both male and female chromosomes. Adam is never sure which Gene/Jean will speak to him next. And Andy (Bobby Porter) is the ship's cowardly robot, an oily collection of spare parts that was put together by Adam, and who is now engaged to the ship's load control box. Adam's immediate superior is Otto Palindrome (Conrad Janis), an officious wonk who cares little for Quark's various predicaments. Palindrome, in turn, answers to "The Head" (Alan Caillou), the imperious ruler of United Galaxy who sports a massive cranium and a penchant for putting Quark's life in danger on the barest of whims.

Way before Spaceballs or Galaxy Quest or Futurama, writer and performer Buck Henry (The Graduate, Catch-22) developed a pilot for NBC called Quark, a spoof of the original Star Trek, the NBC science-fiction series that garnered little mainstream attention during its initial 1960s run, but which had exploded in popularity during syndication in the early 1970s. Premiering on May 7, 1977 (almost three weeks before the original Star Wars bowed in movie theatres), the Quark pilot garnered enough interest from the network (particularly after the genuine phenomenon that was Star Wars) that a mid-season replacement order of seven episodes was called up for release at the half-way point of the 1977-1978 TV season. The viewers who had managed to catch the pilot back in May, and who remembered it fondly (myself included), tuned in on February 7, 1978, to see the series slightly tweaked for weekly production (Doc, one of the main characters from the pilot, was gone, with the addition of the Spock-like Ficus replacing him). Ratings in general were abysmal, and the show was canceled before the final April 7th episode aired. As far as I know, the show didn't repeat (perhaps due to the limited number of episodes - only eight, including the pilot). But anyone who saw the series when it first bowed, never forgot it.

I certainly was a fan of the show, having grown up on reruns of the original Star Trek - with the promise of seeing the "Doublemint Twins" Cyb and Patricia Barnstable in gold lame halter tops and hot pants not hurting matters, either. It was just one of those shows that we've all encountered at some point in our pre-teen years that somehow stuck in our imagination, despite the relatively paltry number of episodes. Watching Quark now, the pilot, written and produced by Buck Henry, plays better than the subsequent series (which had nothing to do with Henry), but overall, it's still an amusing show with numerous bright spots in each episode. Henry, one of the co-creators of Get Smart in the mid-60s, fashioned in the Quark pilot an absolutely hysterical benchmark that the rest of the seven shows, unfortunately, just couldn't reach (I suspect that factor, along with a poor time slot, probably contributed to the show's early demise). Henry's pilot has all the giddy goofiness of some of his best Get Smart episodes, while consistently firing off a stream of terrific one-liners that are entirely "Henry-esque," and completely, paralyzingly funny. When the series proper returned in 1978, Henry was no longer associated with the project (his name only appears as the show's creator in the credits), and his razor-sharp witticisms were sorely missed.

The Gene/Jean character is significantly altered from the pilot, as well. It's clear that Buck Henry loved slipping in some affectionate gay humor with the G/J character (Thomerson, as Gene, running down a whole list of his vital ship duties to Adam, adds one more thing at the end, suddenly switching to Jean's voice: "I almost finished my needlepoint."). And Thomerson is perfect in the pilot, switching Gene's no-nonsense manliness with Jean's dizzy feminine mystique at the drop of hat, generating priceless reaction shots from Benjamin who clearly doesn't know what to make of the pinballing sexuality of Gene/Jean (the gifted, likeable Benjamin was an inspired choice as the quirky Quark). But Thomerson's more subtle take on Gene/Jean is gone by the time the series comes back in 1978, with the Gene character, now clearly patterned after Star Wars' Han Solo, dominating the screen time with an overdrawn macho/goofy take by Thomerson, and critically, his Jean voice now seemingly dubbed by a woman - wrecking the whole point of the character in the first place (and eliminating the fun of Thomerson's mincing voice work).

Luckily, Andy the robot hasn't been touched from pilot to series, and he clearly takes the lead as the series' funniest character. Spoofing other famous cinematic and television robots like Robby from Forbidden Planet or the Robot from Lost in Space, Andy's craven, cowardly asides - along with his overactive sex drive - make for the show's most side-splitting moments. During the pilot's finale, Quark is desperately trying to find out why the ship's garbage controls are going haywire - only to discover Andy sexually attacking the garbage load control box, whining pathetically in his mechanical, sing-song voice, "I love you! I need you! I want you!" It's hysterically funny and surprisingly adult for this kind of show (Henry tops himself when he slipped this one by the censors, with Quark commenting on Andy's sexual activity: "If Andy hadn't dumped that load...."), and consistently, the cowardly Andy gets the best lines throughout the eight episodes (it's a toss-up as to his best line: either "The next time your garbage isn't collected, think of this day," when he's captured and sentenced to die in May the Source Be With You, or his response to the killer on-board computer Vanessa, who wants to take out the whole crew in Vanessa 38-24-36: "Vanessa, this is my family. We live and work together every day....I want you to know I'm willing to turn on them.").

I grew up watching (original) Star Trek reruns, and I'm sure I've seen every episode countless times - but I'm no "expert" on the series, by any means. But even I could tell that quite a few of the Quark episodes specifically target original Star Trek episodes: Quark's The Old and The Beautiful spoofs ST's second-season The Deadly Years; The Good, the Bad and the Ficus spoofs ST's second-season Mirror, Mirror; Goodbye, Polumbus (the title a take-off on Benjamin's most famous film, Goodbye, Columbus) spoofs ST's first season Shore Leave; and Vanessa 38-24-36 taking on ST's second season The Ultimate Computer (with a big nod to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey thrown in for good measure). And while die-hard Star Trek enthusiasts no doubt loved Quark's respectful, funny takes on their favorite series, I wonder if mainstream television audiences from 1978 caught all that, or the show's general air of sophisticated, ironic humor, for that matter - or if they just thought Quark was a silly sci-fi kids show on dead-air Friday nights. Quark's chances of success certainly weren't helped by having premiered, in the first place, on NBC (during a horrendous ratings period for the network, which scored only four shows in the year-end Top Thirty Nielsen ratings), nor debuting mid-season on a Friday evening of television with not one single show, from any of the three networks, placing in the year-end Top Thirty. Replacing the dreadful The Sanford Arms in February, Quark faced the previous year's phenomenon Donnie and Marie over on ABC (very popular with young girls), while CBS' newly-acquired The New Adventures of Wonder Woman pulled in significant young male demos. That didn't leave a lot of viewers left over for Quark, which was pulled in April after only seven episodes.

Quark (Pilot)
Tired of garbage duty, Commander Adam Quark finally gets a real assignment when he is ordered to destroy an enzyme cloud that threatens the galaxy.

May the Source Be With You
Quark battles a menacing Gorgon with the help of an ancient power known as "The Source," which he quickly discovers is a little rusty.

The Old and the Beautiful
Just before his amorous rendezvous with a beautiful princess, Quark contracts a mysterious virus and begins to age, becoming old and feeble within hours.

The Good, The Bad and the Ficus
While on a routine mission, Quark's ship gets pulled into a black hole, which splits the crew into "good" and "evil" counterparts, except for science officer Ficus.

Goodbye, Polumbus
The ship is sent on a mission to the planet Polumbus. But once there, Quark and his crew fall prey to their fantasies, and no one wants to leave.

All the Emperor's Quasi-Norms (Part 1)
Quark is captured by the evil Emperor Zorgon and ordered to find "it." And while Gene/Jean lectures the enemy, the Emperor's daughter falls for Ficus.

All the Emperor's Quasi-Norms (Part 2)
After he and his crew are rescued by the Forest People, Quark actually does find "it," a crystal that he thinks will make him invincible.

Vanessa 38-24-36
As everyone on Perma One celebrates the holiday Number 11, Quark is given an experimental computer named "Vanessa," which tries to take over his ship.

The DVD:

The Video:
The full-screen, 1.33:1 video transfer for Quark - The Complete Series is adequate, with grain and video noise apparent, but for the most part, not too distracting. Colors are acceptable, if a little weak (which, as I remember NBC's house "look" from that period, is fairly close to the original). Not a great picture, but not bad, either.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono soundtrack is perfectly adequate to the job, with all dialogue heard cleanly (although I would love to have heard Perry Botkin, Jr.'s amusing theme - which sounds like a cross between Star Trek and In Search Of... - in a stereo arrangement. Close captions are available.

The Extras:
Unfortunately, there are no Quark-related extras - a miss here, considering the interest for this cult item. We do get two of those idiotic "minisodes" (edited-down episodes of other series for promotional purposes) that Sony seems so fond of - for Fantasy Island and I Dream of Jeannie. Dumb.

Final Thoughts:
A lost opportunity back in 1978. Quark - The Complete Series gives everybody a second chance to discover this neglected little gem of a spoofy sci-fi comedy, created by the nicely twisted mind of Buck Henry. Richard Benjamin is an inspired choice as Quark, and Andy the cowardly robot, going to town on a load control box while whining that he's in love with it, has to be seen to be believed. The pilot (written by Henry) sets the bar very high for the rest of the series, but there are enough hilarious one-liners left over to keep you thoroughly amused. Even without the extras, I highly recommend Quark - The Complete Series.