Some shows run for seven years; Quark lasted just seven episodes.
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This may be my shortest review for DVD Town, for one simple reason: This is one of the shortest runs a TV series ever had. Some shows run for seven years; "Quark" lasted just seven episodes in 1977--eight, counting the pilot, which is also included on this DVD.
I'm not an expert on physics and can't even comprehend the dictionary definition of a "quark," which has something to do with baryon and meson particles, and so maybe I don't get the joke of naming the commander of an intergalactic garbage ship Adam Quark. From his performance, it's also doubtful that Richard Benjamin gets it. This role and this show must have felt like a galaxy far, far away from characters he played and performances he gave in "Goodbye, Columbus" (1969), "Catch-22" (1970), "Diary of a Mad Housewife" (1970), or even that sci-fi wonder, "Westworld" (1973).
Quark does his Commander Kirk thing with a captain's log running narrative, and the odd assortment is clearly intended to be a vague allusion to "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," but I've seen funnier satires and more energy at high school talent nights.
Just the concept of the crew and characters is something that feels more like a rough sketch for the fictional Alan Brady Show on the old "Dick Van Dyke Show" that would have Alan crumpling up the script and telling the writers to "get serious" . . . which is to say, get funny. This show isn't, and the problem begins with those characters. Created by Buck Henry, who gave us "Get Smart," this show features someone who gets his assignments not from The Chief but from a disembodied head that floats on a screen in front of him. The chain of command involves Otto Palindrome (Conrad Janis, "Mork and Mindy"), who mediates between The Head and The Quark. Then there's first officer Gene/Jean, a supposed "transmute" who acts like a deep-voiced macho man one moment and an affected shemale the next. That doubling continues with co-pilots Betty and Betty, two blondes played by sisters (Patricia and Cyb Barnstable). One of them is supposed to be Betty, and the other Betty's clone. They speak in unison much of the time, and therefore have the potential to be twice as funny or twice as annoying. Unfortunately, you get tired of the gag almost instantly. A character named Ficus (Richard Kelton) was added after the pilot, but this science officer who's supposed to be some sort of humanoid vegetable makes about as much sense as the rest of the characters. There's no substance behind any of the character design, no potential for funny interaction--they're just freaks in a freak show thrown into space aboard a garbage vessel, which is an appropriate place. The only mildly amusing character is a plasma pet with one eye that moves like a caterpillar. And you get tired of him pretty quickly, too.
Frankly, I expected better from Buck Henry, who had also written "The Graduate" and "What's Up, Doc?" Oh, there's the occasional interesting line, as when Adam Quark, speaking to record his captain's log, gives his background and says his ancestors were "members of a subgroup called Americans," adding, "Archeological diggings made in the Western and several sections of their country indicate that the so-called Americans worshipped and perhaps were governed by a fully clothed English-speaking mouse." But some of the jokes are just so obvious you don't want to make them running gags . . . you want to give them a running start. Like The Head, who keeps saying things like "Don't tell me about headaches," and later says, "Can you imagine a migraine the size of a supernova?" Yeah, I can, and it comes from watching these episodes unearthed from some enterprising exec's archeological dig.
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[release]24990[/release]