Shatner: There’s Never Been Anything Like Star Trek
2 min readIn an interview with PopCulture, William Shatner spoke about Star Trek and how its longevity is unique and probably won’t happen again. Plus: Kirk reflected Shatner’s real life.
“Star Trek is a phenomenon,” said Shatner. “There’s never been anything like it, and there never will be anything like it in our lifetime because the show would have to go fifty-five years to equal the longevity, let alone the number of iterations of Star Trek, so it is a phenomenon.
“It’s unique. The reason for it being unique is part of the unexplained.”
Shatner then turned to discussion of the iconic Captain Kirk, admitting that it’s really not practical to bring the character back. “I don’t know how you explain Captain Kirk fifty-five years later,” he said. “When the character was killed in the sixth or seventh movie, I started writing books about the Captain Kirk character.”
Those books showed a Kirk who was part Shatner. “…I used my own life,” he said. “What happens to Captain Kirk in my books, and I got special permission to keep him alive in those books, is semi-autobiographical. I dramatized my life by giving it to Kirk.”
Shatner is currently working on The UnXplained, where he is executive producer and host of the show. “This second series of shows fall somewhere between the first and second seasons. There are eight new shows coming up this summer. These are now becoming knowledgeable.”
The UnExplained will air again beginning Saturday, July 11 at 9 PM on History.