william shatner – Trekking with Dennis

Star Trek at Comic-Con 2022 – thoughts and impressions

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3, Star Trek: Lower Decks Seasons 1-3, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-2, and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise – including upcoming and unreleased projects.

This year’s San Diego Comic-Con is winding down – and we got a lot of Star Trek news to process over the weekend! I didn’t attend Comic-Con myself, but I’ve been following the event online, and there were several big announcements, a big surprise, teasers and trailers, and comments from Star Trek stars past and present to dive into. I’ll do my best to take a look at all of the major points today!

I’m actually a little surprised that there was so much news coming out of Comic-Con; a Lower Decks trailer and something about Picard felt like certainties, but beyond that I was wondering if Paramount might hold things back and put together a repeat of last year’s “Star Trek Day” broadcast event where the franchise could be centre-stage.

A billboard promoting Star Trek at San Diego Comic-Con.

An event like Comic-Con is a double-edged sword in some ways for corporations like Paramount. On the one hand, there’s a lot of attention directed at Comic-Con even from mainstream news outlets, which can be good for promotional purposes. But on the other, Star Trek has to compete for that attention with the likes of Marvel, Star Wars, Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series, and many others.

So I hope it was a success from Paramount’s point of view and managed to bring at least some new eyes to the Star Trek franchise. It feels as though Paramount put a significant amount of investment into this weekend’s events and promotional materials, so as someone who hopes to see Star Trek continuing to be a success, I’d like to think it paid off!

The *Strange New Worlds* panel at Comic-Con.

So let’s start with Star Trek: Picard. We didn’t get to see a proper trailer, instead getting another teaser that showed off the main cast of Season 3. I’m still quite disappointed with how the casting situation has been handled, and the fact that we aren’t going to get to spend more time with characters like Elnor and Soji feels like a backwards step – at least in some respects – for a franchise that should be moving forward. But that decision has long ago been taken, so let’s consider what we did see instead of what we didn’t!

First of all, Seven of Nine’s field commission seems to have been made permanent, and she’s seen in uniform for the first time. That was neat, and seems to further her wonderful arc from both seasons of the show so far. The design of Worf was perhaps the most interesting to me; after the Klingons had undergone a major redesign for both the Kelvin films and Discovery, the design of Worf shown off in the Picard Season 3 teaser is much closer to the post-Motion Picture Klingon look that Worf had during The Next Generation’s run.

Absent from the teaser was Brent Spiner – so we still don’t know who he may be portraying. It’s tempting to suggest that his absence may be hiding some major design secret (such as a reimagined Data, Lore, or B4) but I’m not convinced of that yet. Altan Inigo Soong (from Picard Season 1) feels like the most obvious choice for Spiner to portray, but we don’t know that for certain.

At the panel, Sir Patrick Stewart indicated that a visit to “more than one” USS Enterprise could be on the cards in Season 3, which could imply anything from travelling through time to a Search for Spock-inspired starship theft! Precisely which Enterprise(s) Picard and the crew may visit wasn’t stated – so could it be Pike’s Enterprise, perhaps?

Sir Patrick Stewart speaking during the *Picard* panel.

There’s actually not much else to say about Picard right now. The teaser didn’t give much away, and aside from design choices like several characters wearing leather jackets, we don’t actually know a whole lot more about the show’s final season than we did before Comic-Con. Some of what was discussed – like a potential female villain and revisiting the Enterprise – sounds interesting, and Picard Season 3 is definitely one of my most-anticipated right now. But after an underwhelming Season 2 and the disappointment of the rather callous cutting of under-used characters, there’s no doubt it has serious work to do. Nothing I saw at Comic-Con has me anxious or worried… but because what we saw was relatively barebones, nothing blew me away either.

The upcoming video game Star Trek: Resurgence made an appearance at Comic-Con. Still scheduled for release later this year, the panel didn’t go into a lot of story details for obvious reasons, but the game seems to be shaping up nicely. It looks to be very much in line with Telltale Games titles from the past few years – the likes of Batman, The Wolf Among Us, and The Walking Dead, to name but a few – and considering that developer Dramatic Labs is made up of a number of ex-Telltale creators, that makes sense! I’ll be sure to take a detailed look at Resurgence when it launches, so stay tuned for that!

I wasn’t expecting to see any kind of teaser or trailer for Strange New Worlds Season 2; although filming recently wrapped up we’ve only just finished watching Season 1, so Season 2 is likely ten-plus months away! There was no news about a potential third season renewal either – although I suspect that’s just a matter of time!

The biggest news from the Strange New Worlds panel, though, was the surprise announcement of a crossover with Lower Decks. I’ve been longing for a proper crossover between the current crop of Star Trek shows – so this is great news! Strange New Worlds had moments of humour and comedy in its first season, so the pairing is not as unnatural as it might first appear. I’m not quite sure how the episode will blend live action and animation, though – will Boimler and Mariner appear as cartoons on a live-action set? That’s something to watch out for!

A truly unexpected crossover is on the cards!

The crossover episode will air as part of Strange New Worlds’ second season sometime next year, and will be directed by Jonathan Frakes. Frakes has directed some of Discovery and Picard’s best episodes and knows the Star Trek franchise inside and out, so I’m really hopeful that this crossover will end up being as much fun as it sounds! I might not have chosen to stick Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds together, but with both shows hitting their stride after successful debut seasons, the time is right for a crossover. Hopefully it will be the first of many as Star Trek’s renaissance continues!

There were some interesting pieces of merchandise shown off at Comic-Con, too. I didn’t see any Prodigy toys or figures, but there were some prototypes from Playmates and EXO-6 showing off their latest figures of the likes of Captain Kirk, Locutus of Borg, and other classic characters. Factory Entertainment also debuted their Motion Picture insignia and Type II “dustbuster” phaser – which I hope will come to the UK!

A new “dustbuster” phaser replica may be coming soon!

Alex Kurtzman teased us with news that there may be two unannounced Star Trek projects in early production. With Picard finishing its run after Season 3 next year, I feel like an announcement can’t be far away for at least one new project, but what that project may be is still unknown! One potential series is the untitled Section 31 spin-off that was announced back in 2019, but my gut says that project probably won’t see the light of day. There’s been talk of a Ceti Alpha V miniseries focusing on Khan, and there’s also a rumoured Starfleet Academy series. Any of those could be announced before the end of the year – so watch this space!

I wonder, though, if one of these unannounced projects could be a 25th Century post-Picard series, perhaps even a spin-off focusing on Seven of Nine and Raffi. There seemed to be a lot of investment in new sets built for Picard Season 2 that were only seen at the beginning and end of the season, so could those sets be repurposed for a new series set aboard the new USS Stargazer? It’s all speculation at this point, of course, but I can’t help wondering!

A trailer for Lower Decks Season 3 debuted at Comic-Con, and the series has recently been confirmed to be returning on the 25th of August – in just a month’s time! The trailer picked up from where the Season 2 finale left off, with Captain Freeman in custody and the crew having to figure out what to do next. It seems like we saw several clips from the first episode – at least, that’s the impression I got – so there may be surprises still to come later in the season!

One story will take the Lower Decks crew to Deep Space Nine, and we saw the station and nearby wormhole shown off in the trailer – along with the familiar Deep Space Nine theme. I absolutely adore Deep Space Nine, and after the station was briefly glimpsed in a Season 1 flashback, it will be amazing to head back there for what will be the first post-Dominion War episode in that setting. Series creator Mike McMahan has promised us a look inside the station as well as some familiar faces, too!

One of those familiar faces seems to be the Klingon General Martok – an important recurring character in the latter part of Deep Space Nine’s run. It may be too much to hope for to get a real Deep Space Nine-inspired story that picks up some of the dangling threads that series left behind… but I can’t help it! I’d love to see the next chapter in the Deep Space Nine story unfold on screen, and even just getting a glimpse or a tease would be fantastic.

Other scenes in the trailer seemed to show a return to one of the first planets visited by Mariner and Boimler in Season 1, stealing the impounded USS Cerritos (presumably to rescue Captain Freeman), Boimler in Cetacean Ops, Rutherford and Tendi at Sisko’s restaurant in New Orleans, Boimler and Mariner acting as Starfleet recruiters, Dr T’Ana performing an amputation, and more! We saw Captain Freeman in uniform alongside Commander Ransom briefly, so I assume she will be able to escape the false charges laid against her!

The trailer looked like the familiar blend of animated comedy hijinks and throwbacks to The Next Generation era that we’ve come to expect from Lower Decks across its first two seasons. We’ve had some genuinely outstanding episodes so far – and only a couple of duds, really – so more of the same is no bad thing! I’m curious to see how the Captain Freeman cliffhanger will be resolved – will it be a one-episode story or will it rumble on for much of the season?

There was a surprising absence at Comic-Con: Prodigy. There was no mention of Prodigy (aside from a poster as part of the broader “Star Trek Universe” marketing), and that strikes me as odd. We’re supposedly going to be seeing ten more episodes of Prodigy before the end of this year to round out the show’s first season, so it was surprising that nothing was mentioned. We don’t even have an official broadcast date for the next batch of episodes – and there’s currently no new Star Trek being shown for the next few weeks.

There was nothing *Prodigy-*related at Comic-Con this time.

It’s possible that we’ll come to learn more about Prodigy’s next steps and some of these in-production but unannounced projects in the near future. The 7th of September will be “Star Trek Day,” for example, and we could see another presentation of some kind to mark the occasion. Prodigy could also follow Lower Decks and kick off the second half of Season 1 in late October or early November – this would keep Star Trek on our screens through the holiday season and into 2023.

There was a comment from William Shatner about Star Trek that a lot of folks have picked up on on social media. At Comic-Con, Shater claimed that Gene Roddenberry would not approve of the direction of modern Star Trek, saying that the franchise’s creator would be “spinning in his grave” at the many of the creative and narrative decisions that have been taken. I think it’s worth pointing out that Shatner was similarly dismissive of The Next Generation, the Kelvin reboot films, and practically every Star Trek project that doesn’t feature his take on Captain Kirk. I don’t think we need to dedicate a lot of time to what Shatner has said; he’s entitled to his opinion, of course, and really the question of whether Gene Roddenberry would or wouldn’t approve of certain shows, episodes, or stories is rather a moot point. Modern Star Trek is doing some great things – and I for one hope it’s here to stay!

So I think that about wraps things up.

For me, the biggest and most interesting piece of news is the Lower Decks-Strange New Worlds crossover. A story like that has massive entertainment potential as both shows have demonstrated respect and reverence for past iterations of Star Trek. It seems to me that the crossover could be a real “made for fans” moment – but perhaps also one that could bring in new viewers to both series. Blending animation and live-action can be a challenge, but Star Trek has always risen to meet technical and creative challenges as it strives to tell new, different, and exciting stories!

The tease of new projects on the horizon is fascinating – but until we start to get information about what those projects may be, it’s hard to get overly excited! I’ve got a few different articles and lists here on the website looking at pitches and concepts – as well as putting together a few ideas of my own – so check those out if you’re interested. As and when Alex Kurtzman and the creative teams see fit to tell us more, I’ll be sure to cover it in-depth and give my thoughts!

So that was Comic-Con. Star Trek put in a decent showing this year, and it seems like we have a lot to look forward to both later this year and in 2023.

The Star Trek franchise – including all shows, films, and properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. Some images used above courtesy of Star Trek/Paramount Global on social media. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Shatner in space

Sun 07.11.21Sun 07.11.21Dennis

A few months ago I wrote an article about how space exploration has become boring. The title was deliberately provocative, and of course it goes without saying that I’m approaching the subject from the point of view of a layman. But the point I made stands – it’s been a very long time since any mission to space, and even longer since any crewed mission to space, was of anything more than minor interest.

Many space missions in recent years saw unmanned probes launched, satellites placed into orbit, and the only missions with crews aboard visited the International Space Station. The ISS is without doubt an amazing feat of technology and engineering – but after more than two decades of permanent inhabitation, it’s long since lost much of its interest from the point of view of the layman. Scientifically and technologically space continues to be very important, but for me – and many other folks as well – it’s no longer the inspirational, aspirational place it once was.

Partly that’s a consequence of the scaled-back nature of crewed missions, the budget cuts space agencies have faced since the end of the Cold War and its associated space race, and perhaps the difficulty, expense, and length of time required to undertake missions to places we’ve never been before. But regardless of the cause, missions to space in the real world have lost much of their lustre over the decades, and no longer feel as special or as interesting as they once did.

But William Shatner’s recent trek to space was different. Even an old cynic like me felt genuine awe and wonder at the idea that Shatner – Captain Kirk himself – was actually going into space. For decades, journeys to space were the exclusive purview of a tiny number of well-trained air force pilots and scientists. Just getting into the astronaut or cosmonaut programmes required either a career as a high-flying ace fighter pilot or a doctorate in a relevant scientific field. There have been attempts to put spaceflight within reach of more people – Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, was set to be the first teacher to travel into space. But generally speaking, becoming an astronaut and travelling to space was out of reach for practically all of us.

William Shatner aboard Blue Origin’s NS-18 mission.

People like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have talked in vaguely-defined terms about future missions to space or to Mars that would bring along more civilians and regular folks, but those missions seemed like a long way off. Then came missions in the last couple of years taking paying passengers – but at such a high cost that space felt like a playground for the billionaires’ club and was still beyond the reach of most ordinary people.

William Shatner’s space flight has gone a long way to challenging all of those perceptions. There’s something truly inspirational about the idea of Captain Kirk actually going into space; just writing those words feels incredibly surreal. This character was at the head of a television show and a franchise that, for more than half a century, has done more than any other to inspire people to look to the stars and to look to a future where space travel will be something anyone can participate in. And here he was, actually making that dream a reality in the real world.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Star Trek as an inspirational franchise. Generations of people have watched the series and been inspired by its message, its morals, its optimism, and its technology. The franchise has a track record of bringing its technologies to life – everything from tablet computers, wireless communicators, video calling, and more were “predicted” by Star Trek before becoming a reality. And perhaps that’s what makes William Shatner’s space flight so inspiring – he made the dream of going to space come true as well. There’s hope that, if Captain Kirk can actually travel into space, as Star Trek depicted all those years ago, perhaps the rest of us can too.

Not to be impolite, but at the age of 90, William Shatner isn’t in the prime of his life in terms of his physical condition. He looks great for 90, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a bit of a belly, a few too many wrinkles, and the ever-present toupée! But I’m not here to criticise any of that – because it’s those things that make his journey to space even more astonishing and aspirational. Not only is Captain Kirk himself in space, but here’s someone who’s older than any previous space traveller, who isn’t in the best shape of his life, and yet still it was possible to undertake that incredible journey. By simply being who he is, Shatner has once again inspired millions of folks who might’ve felt space travel was beyond them. Perhaps they felt they were too old, or they have a health condition, or something else. But seeing William Shatner at age 90 boarding that rocket and floating around up in space demonstrates to all of us that such a journey might be possible after all.

William Shatner and his crewmates boarding their spacecraft.

To me, that’s the success of this latest mission to space. For the first time in a very long time, a crewed space mission managed to get me genuinely excited and emotional; I felt I was sharing that moment with William Shatner and the others aboard the rocket. His sense of awe and wonder was so genuine, and the way he spoke and conveyed how it felt was passionate and beautiful.

There are still issues with space travel. The fact that it costs such an insane amount of money is going to be a barrier for a lot of people. But that was true of many inventions from the motor car to the aeroplane, and now those methods of travel are available to many more people than they were when they were first invented.

The idea that Captain Kirk could *actually* go into space has captured the public imagination in a unique way.

It feels like we’re on the cusp of a new age of space exploration. No longer will space be the exclusive realm of government-funded agencies, gated off to all but a select few people who were privileged enough to be able to head down the perfect career path. Commercial spaceflight has the potential to open up space to untold millions of people – and not just for short fun jaunts either. Orbital hotels, moon colonies, the exploration of Mars, and so many more things all feel one step closer today than they did just a few short weeks ago. That isn’t William Shatner’s doing – Blue Origin, SpaceX, and other companies have been building up to this moment for years. But once again, William Shatner brought space to the fore and captured the public’s imagination in a way that only he could.

I have no time for the naysayers. Prince William, one of the last wriggling vestiges of a dying aristocratic elite, had the audacity to criticise Shatner’s spaceflight shortly after he returned to Earth, saying that we should focus our energies on fixing climate change, not racing to colonise new worlds. But why can’t we do both? And not only that, but there’s more to fighting climate change than getting to the precious “net zero” that seems to be the fetish of our current crop of leaders. Space can offer solutions – harvesting solar energy, for example, capturing carbon and removing it from the atmosphere, or even building solar shades to shield parts of the Arctic and Antarctic are among many hypothetical ways that missions in space could have a real-world impact. And for all of the criticisms I made earlier of space exploration and missions to the ISS feeling boring from the layman’s perspective, the scientific advances they provide have already made an impact here on Earth.

William Shatner looking down at Earth from space.

For the first time in a very long time, a real-life mission to space managed to capture my attention – and showed off to millions of people that the dream of space travel, embodied by television franchises like Star Trek, hasn’t died. There’s the real and genuine potential to repeat this feat, and as technology continues to improve and costs come down, maybe spaceflight will be within reach of the average person sooner than we might expect.

All William Shatner did was accept an invitation and take his seat. But that simple act, and the wonderful reaction he had to it, was life-changing – and not just for the man himself. Just as he did in the 1960s when he commanded the starship Enterprise, William Shatner has once again inspired people all over the world, showing us that it isn’t futile to look to the stars.

Some images used above courtesy of Blue Origin via YouTube. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Will we see William Shatner back as Captain Kirk?

Sun 07.06.20Sun 20.11.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There may be minor spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise, including the most recent seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. There will also be major spoilers for the film Star Trek: Generations.

There has been some buzz lately in Star Trek fan communities about something William Shatner said in a recent interview. To make a long story short, Shatner said that he’d be interested to return to his most iconic role, provided it was more than a mere cameo.

I don’t really like commenting on these types of stories. There were many in the run-up to the release of Star Trek: Picard, when practically everyone who had once been a main cast member in a Star Trek series was asked whether they’d be up for a return. People like Robert Picardo and LeVar Burton got some attention for their comments, as did others, but they were all saying basically the same thing, which was some variant of this: “I’d like to do it, but there hasn’t been any formal discussion with ViacomCBS about it.” Well… that could apply to anyone. Aside from very few individuals who seem to want nothing to do with the franchise any more, practically every ex-Star Trek star would – for the right price, of course – be up for a return.

William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk in *The Original Series* second-season episode The Trouble With Tribbles.

So why has William Shatner’s comment blown up the way it has? I’m honestly not sure. In the aftermath of 1994’s Star Trek: Generations, Shatner co-wrote a series of novels – his first set in the Star Trek universe. In these books, Kirk – who you’ll remember died in Generations – was resurrected by Borg-Romulans and would go on to live in the late 24th Century. As a statement of intent from the actor that Kirk could be resurrected somehow, a published series of novels is about as clear as it gets! Shatner has been willing to reprise his role ever since he last played Kirk in 1994. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he still is.

As things stand right now, I don’t see it happening. The first and biggest reason why is that it would be incredibly difficult to do in-universe. Kirk is dead. He died in Generations, and even with all the technobabble at Starfleet’s disposal, there’s no way around that. Star Wars has learned to its great cost that the resurrection of long-dead characters can go over incredibly poorly, feeling like nothing but cheap fan-service and a blatant nostalgia play, and frankly there’s no way to resurrect Kirk without those same issues rearing their heads.

The second “Shatnerverse” novel, *The Return*, saw Kirk brought back to life.

The only way Shatner could reprise the role of Kirk would be as an alternate-universe version. And that has problems too. The first is which parallel universe this version of Kirk would inhabit. With the production of a fourth Kelvin timeline/JJverse film unclear at best, it seems very unlikely he could appear there. There had been rumours in the run-up to Star Trek Beyond that Shatner might join former co-star Leonard Nimoy for a role, with both older actors appearing as future versions of that timeline’s Kirk and Spock. With Nimoy’s death, that element of the film never happened – if indeed it was ever going to.

Could Shatner appear as another character, though? In my opinion, for whatever that’s worth, this would be the only way to include him in any new Star Trek production. He could be, just as an example, the grandfather of a young Ensign or Lieutenant Kirk. But it would be hard to make a role of this kind anything more than a cameo, which is something Shatner has said he wasn’t interested in.

Killing off Kirk in Generations was a big decision, and it wasn’t without controversy at the time – though in the days when most people weren’t online and there was no social media, those criticisms were less widespread! But it was undeniably a final end for the character, and there simply isn’t a sensible way to bring him back in his original, Prime Universe form. Frankly, it would be disrespectful to ask William Shatner to play a minor role or to make a cameo appearance, and I understand why someone of his calibre and with his unique standing in the Star Trek community would feel that way. But all of this means that there really isn’t a way to bring him back.

Capt. Kirk was killed at the end of 1994’s *Star Trek: Generations*.

The final point I’d make is this: Star Trek is doing okay at the moment. CBS All Access is still in a very competitive market in the United States, but it’s clear as day that recent Star Trek projects have been at least somewhat successful, or we wouldn’t see the continued investment in the franchise that ViacomCBS has been willing to make. A second season of Picard is happening, a third of Discovery is happening, and there are two new live-action shows that have been announced, one that’s in early development that hasn’t been announced, and two animated shows too, one of which already has a two-season order. With all of this going on, I just don’t see a need for Kirk to be shoehorned in.

The obvious comparison is Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, which I alluded to above. That film had a number of issues – as I noted in my review – but what it boiled down to was that Star Wars as a brand has found itself unable to escape the characters and storylines of its original trilogy. We see this across Star Wars, from the prequels to the sequels and the spin-offs. The entire franchise revolves around its original incarnation, as no one has really been bold enough yet to take it in a new direction. As such, when JJ Abrams needed a powerful villain for The Rise of Skywalker, he fell back on the original “big bad”: Palpatine.

Star Wars tried bringing back a long-dead character… and look how well that worked.

Star Trek, in contrast, has long since moved on from Capt. Kirk – something which has been obvious since 1987, when The Next Generation premiered and showed that the franchise could be more than its first captain and crew. And Star Trek has only grown since then. Discovery may overlap slightly with Kirk’s era, but that’s all it is: an overlap. Strange New Worlds will share that setting, but again, it’s not a story that’s as tied up with The Original Series in the same way as Star Wars’ ongoing saga is with its original trilogy. Star Trek may have started with William Shatner’s Capt. Kirk in the 1960s, but it doesn’t end there, not by a long shot. As a result of that point alone, there just isn’t any need for Kirk to come back. As a fan of The Original Series I can admit it would be a cute nod and wink to fans to find a way to bring Shatner in – but no more so than it would be to see Robert Picardo or LeVar Burton, or any of the other 30 or more actors who once played a main role in a Star Trek show.

Speaking more broadly, any franchise has to be careful when looking backwards. One of the things I was concerned about with Star Trek: Picard is that it could end up trying to be Season 8 of The Next Generation – something which it simply never could be. As fun and nostalgic as it can be to see classic characters return, if that’s all that a story offers it will never be a success. There has to be something interesting, entertaining, and dramatic to drive the plot, and any new characters we meet along the way have to be part of that. Spending too much time looking backwards means there’s no time to look forwards, and that’s unfair to any new cast members. They deserve at least a chance to become fan favourites for a new generation of Trekkies, the way William Shatner and others were fan favourites for the first generation. Stories can be drowned out by nostalgia, with new characters left underdeveloped and sidelined. While it can be done well, as I’d argue Star Trek: Picard demonstrates, it can also be done poorly as we’ve seen in recent years.

*Star Trek: Picard* brought back Sir Patrick Stewart to the franchise.

So do I think we’ll see William Shatner back in Star Trek? I would never say “never”, but at the moment I think it’s unlikely. With his character having been killed off more than two decades ago, and with the franchise standing on its own two feet just fine without needing to continually return to The Original Series for ideas, it’s hard to see where there’s a place for him to make a major contribution. If he wanted to do a cameo I think that could be fun, but as he’s made clear that isn’t something he’s up for – which is perfectly fair enough – it’s hard to see any Star Trek writer going out of their way to create a role especially for him, or to find some convoluted and inevitably controversial way to un-kill Kirk.

There will always be these kinds of comments from actors. It’s understandable, given that Star Trek has made a big return to our screens, that journalists and fans will ask anyone who’d been involved with Star Trek in the past if they’d be willing to come back. And it’s understandable for someone of Shatner’s pedigree to say he’d only do it if he could be given a decent-sized role. But none of it actually means anything, because if the people in charge of Star Trek over at ViacomCBS were genuinely interested, they’d have reached out to him. That’s why I tend not to comment on these kind of stories.

The Star Trek franchise – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.