And wasn't "Dylan Hunt" the name of the main character on Andromeda?

All hail Hollywood's big 2010 remakes, this time, from 70's TV pilots that never even aired..

Wow, talk about taking a ride in the WABAC Machine. I remember seeing Genesis II, Planet Earth, Strange New World, The Questor Tapes, and Spectre. As I remember, The Questor Tapes was the best of the bunch.

Pretty much everything Gene Roddenberry did besides Star Trek turned out to be complete fail. That's one big reason why I tend to credit his awesome team of staff writers, especially D.C. Fontana, for the quality of the Original Series more than I do him.

It's also noteworthy that The Lieutenant starred Gary Lockwood (Lt. Cdr. Gary Mitchell in TOS episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before) as the lead character, William Tiberius Rice - some similarities with other known characters there?

Spectre was a fun little film. Robert Culp and Gig Young played a Homes/Watson type duo who become involved with an English family and the demon Asmodeus. It also starred John Hurt, "Upstairs Downstairs" actor Gordon Jackson, and Majel Barret as a witch who was Culp's housekeeper. Seeing it years later, it seems a little corny at times, but it was certainly ahead of its time with the occult theme. It would do much better now if developed properly.

I agree with Antodav. I have always thouight that Roddenberry was over rated. If it wasn't for people like Robert Wise, Nicholas Meyer, Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, and Michael Piller we would NOT be talking about Star Trek today let alone Mr. Roddenberry.

"Writers who worked for Star Trek have said that ideas they developed were later passed off by Roddenberry as his own, or that he lied about their contributions and involvement to the show. Roddenberry was confronted by these writers, and he apologized to them; but according to his critics, he would continue the behavior. Roddenberry is occasionally criticized for his treatment of movie and script royalties related to Star Trek. He alienated composer Alexander Courage by demanding fifty percent of the royalties which Courage received for the show's theme song whenever an episode of Star Trek was aired. Later, while cooperating with Stephen Whitfield for the latter's book The Making of Star Trek, Roddenberry demanded—and received—Whitfield's acquiescence for 50 percent of the book's royalties. As Roddenberry explained to Whitfield in 1968: "I had to get some money somewhere. I'm sure not going to get it from the profits of Star Trek." Herbert Solow and Robert H. Justman observe that Whitfield never regretted his fifty-fifty deal with Roddenberry since it gave him "the opportunity to become the first chronicler of television's successful unsuccessful series."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry

"Other scandalmongers have tried to make much out of an affair between Nichelle Nichols (Uhuru) and Roddenberry, yet both freely admit the affair. Most interesting is the fact that Nichols has said that their relationship may have helped her land a role on the show."

http://www.nndb.com/people/503/000022437/

Roddenberry had lots of great original ideas. That's more than 90% of today's movies can say, including that wannabe 'Trek' movie.

Forge, don't you dare leave out Gene Coon from TOS days--father of the Klingons, horta, "Federation" & (Vietnam-inspired) Prime Directive.

Questor, about an android searching for his creator and finding his own "Humanity", was the prototype later for Data & his arc.

RICK BERMAN?
He almost single-handedly ruined the Start Trek Franchise! Once he got control of the franchise, hiring 90210 writers to write SciFi and then blaming the fans for lack of ratings. *scoff*

alot of writers and producers have had things that don't make it.for what ever reason.why should Roddenberry be any different.and look at some of the crap that did make it on the air.as far as Zee's coment about rick berman go's he's right to a point.trek got very formula and predictable under his watch.thats why i switched to babylon 5 after awhile

Spectre was an exceptional show. Robert Culp did a fine job as a detective of the supernatural. However the tried and true Puritanical nature of the American audience, in short, crucified the show. What with topics of Sex, Demons, Satanic ritual, witchcraft, and more sex (implied of course). The feminists and conservatives came out in droves to kill any attempt for this "pilot" to become a series.

Pity, it was ahead of it's time.

Ahh, but when will they be available on Netflix?

I agree with antodav and forge on their assessment of Roddenberry. Having seen some of his other stuff, I think it's safe to say that Star Trek was the fluke here. As someone else said, "Questor Tapes" was the best, and it was still pretty bad. If Roddenberry hadn't canceled it himself, it wouldn't have taken the network too long to do it for him.

Roddenberry was indeed a very good writer. He understood PEOPLE, and he despised the pablum that network execs wanted to dish out.
Before Trek, Roddenberry was head writer for 'Have Gun-Will Travel', which unfortunately, most sci-fi fans are entirely ignorant of.
Anyone who bases their estimation of Roddenberry entirely on Star Trek and a handful of pilots afterward is missing a large body of his work.

"Roddenberry had lots of great original ideas. That's more than 90% of today's movies can say, including that wannabe 'Trek' movie."

oh, you mean j.j.’s star trek – the best reviewed and highest grossing trek film of all time? roddenberry’s problem was that he was a pretty good idea man, but not the greatest writer. although, i will give him props for “the menagerie.” for the most part, he just “guided” those around him.

How come the article didn't mention earth: Final conflict?

Shawn, the wannabe 'Trek' movie made money, because it was aimed at the general dull-witted moviegoing audience. No actual Star Trek fan went to see that movie. And, like I said, this movie was not an original idea. If you are going to quote me, understand what I have said before you tell me I am wrong.

"No actual Star Trek fan went to see that movie"

I'm an actual Star Trek fan and I went to see it. I watched TOS on TV in the 60's. I've seen every episode of every other Trek TV series. I've seen every Trek movie. I even went to a Trek convention in the 70's. I didn't really care for the new Star Trek but I saw it (and I'll see the next one).

I remember an interview where Roddenberry mentioned that in Questor tapes there was suppose to be a scene where the android seduced a woman. The network objected and the scene changed to the human companion seducing the woman instead.

In STTNG the character of Data was clearly a continuaion of the Questor character and wouldn't you know by the second or third episode Data is "functioning fully" with Lt Yar.

I always believed this was Roddenberry's way of thumbing his nose at the censors that made him change the original idea. When I saw it I couldn't help but think, "Well Questor finally got lucky."

@ Psi-Phy Phan

Thank You for mentioning Earth: Final Conflict, one of the best scifi shows that has ever been on tv in the last 20 years.

Actually if you look at what was on TV at the time most of these pilots came out, you would more impressed by them. I remember when they came out as a kid, and TV was pretty pathetic. It is easy to blast most of these pilots when your reference point is HBO and Showtime series, even regular TV has better writing than the 70's.

I thought Specter was a pretty good production.

The article fails to mention that Earth II did lead to a six-episode series order, the episodes of which survive. SciFi Channel used to air them in the 1990s.
The series premise was the Dylan agitates to investigate Earth's cut-off enclaves of humanity via the tube trains, whose many identical subterranean stations debouche into various dangerous, terrifying places where PAX fears to tread. He assembles a team who venture out to a different station each episode. One episode is a haunted-house accult story; another involves mutants who drive Road Warrior-style modded cars (fueled by woodgas stoves) and who wear the Klingon "lobsterhead" makeup as their mutant mark. It's been a few years since I last saw these, sorry I'm short of details. They did turn up as Divx files on share sites in 2005, I seem to recall.

There was also a pilot about a space station founded as a weapons-free enclave (they even confiscate toy guns from kids), which finds itself having to defuse a mysterious nuclear warhead discovered orbiting nearby.

And there was a pilot about a space mission to Venus that goes wrong. The crew awaken from suspended animation to find their ship had missed Venus and taken a century-plus abort trajectory back to Earth. Civilization has fallen and there is no one in space to greet them; so they land in their all-terrain Venus exploration vehicle and tool around for a while, discovering a former zoo that has become a haven for villagers oppressed by roving warriors. They intervene on the side of justice then leave, an obvious setup for the series.

If I may rant a bit, the current Web-connected generation has little conception of what awaits them if they step off the networked-media path and invesitgate slumbering stacks of VHS and 8mm tapes. There was twenty years of consumer video-recording culture prior to the Web, and a great deal of the subject matter covered by those recordings has fallen out of release or was never released to home video. Much of this stuff has never been posted to YouTube either; for every hundred vomiting-dog videos on YouTube you might find one Roddenberry classic. Sigh.