Quark (TV Series)

Quark (TV series)

Quark is an American science fiction situation comedy starring Richard Benjamin broadcast on NBC. The pilot first aired on May 7, 1977, and the series followed as a mid-season replacement in February 1978. The series was cancelled in April 1978. Quark was created by Buck Henry, co-creator of the spy spoof Get Smart. Despite the series' short run, it has developed a very favorable reputation among science fiction fandom.

The show was set on a United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol Cruiser, an interstellar garbage scow operating out of United Galaxies Space Station Perma One in the year 2226. Adam Quark, the main character, works to clean up trash in space by collecting "space baggies" with his trusted and somewhat unique crew. Unfortunately for Quark, while circumstances frequently dropped adventure into his lap, he was always ordered back to collecting garbage when the action was over.

In its short run, Quark satirized such science fiction classics as Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Flash Gordon. Three of the episodes were direct satires of Star Trek episodes.

The series won one Emmy Award nomination, for costume designer Grady Hunt's work in the episode "All the Emperor's Quasi-Norms, Part 2".

The complete series was released to Region 1 DVD on October 14, 2008.