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| William Shatner enjoys his new career as a TV funny man in the TWITTER inspired comedy series $#*! MY DAD SAYS. Image: CBS. |
Now enjoying his sixth decade in the entertainment business with the critically dissed but overall ratings solid comedy series, $h*! MY DAD SAYS (showing tonight on the UK’s FIVE USA digital channel), playing Dr. Edison Milford Goodson III, the opinionated and politically incorrect Dad whose views on everything in life pretty much offend everyone (based on the real-life TWITTER notes/experiences of Justin Halpern in his relationship with his father), of which the adapted series would be radically re-worked following a dismal pilot tester), life has never been better for William Shatner, aka The Shat, who has certainly proved himself a diversified talent over the years, from singing (Yeah, those really bad love song poems of the seventies (Trashy, but oh so funny!), as well as recent successes like his cult music CD sensation: HAS BEEN), chat show host (check out his fun, but all too short, weekly series SHATNER’S RAW NERVE), to writer (the lively TEK WAR books plus some intriguing Kirk is back from the dead STAR TREK adventures, co-written with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens), director (STAR TREK V- a commercial failure, that is until 2008’s STAR TREK: NEMESIS came along in 2008 and made even less money!), commercials icon (star of the legendary US PRICELINE commercials, where he would cement his reputation as a comedy talent) and real life outer space persona (sending a message this week to the real-life astronauts orbiting Earth in the final NASA space shuttle mission). He is most loved, however, and obviously most recognizable worldwide- and always will be- as the original and best STAR TREK Captain, James T. Kirk in seven blockbuster movies and the three year running sixties show that started a phenomenon (as well going on to personally enrage its fan base in the mid eighties by telling them to get out of their parents basements and get a life! In a classic comedy sketch for the SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE series), but I thought it might be a nice change to look back at some of Shat’s fine work beyond the Final Frontier, and celebrate some of the known and lesser known TV appearances he’s made past and present that are well worth checking out…
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| BOSTON LEGAL's"Denny Crane!" Image: ABC TV |
THE PRACTICE/BOSTON LEGAL (2004 TO 2008)
Probably his greatest role beyond Kirk, and one which earned him much deserved Emmy and Golden Globe Awards, Denny Crane is the man! The self proclaimed ego considers himself the greatest lawyer in history! He’s mad, bad and dangerous to know, often unethical, sometimes obnoxious, but also playful and unorthodox, and with a huge libido to maintain, but possessing a mind, despite a cognitive impairment and a lot of verbal dribble that comes out of his mouth (often at inopportune times), that’s razor sharp, backed up alongside an often lovable charm that’s hard to resist, so much so that I think most women would end up being charmed into having “Chubby Sex” with Denny, even in his eighties! Taking away the syndrome, this is probably the closest to the real life Shatner we’re going to get! Easily breaking out from his early guest appearances as the character on creator/producer David E. Kelly’s prior THE PRACTICE, BOSTON LEGAL would be “the next big thing” that The Shat had been waiting for ages to star in, and one which he surely dominates with ease and relish. His yonger acting days of "counting the lines" over, he’s become a fine ensemble player, with a great on and off screen relationship with James Spader as his friend and work colleague, Alan Shore. Those often final episode scenes of the pair sharing thoughtful quality cigar and whisky time always proved fun… |
| Alan (James Spader) listens to Denny's plans for world domination. Image: ABC TV |
Denny rallies the troops! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6s6hp0GVX8
3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN (1996-2001)
The love it or hate it six season running sci-fi comedy about a family of human disguised incognito aliens, led by the incident prone Dick Solomon (John Lithgow enjoying ramping it all up a notch!), living as a family on planet Earth at least got some funnier moments with the inclusion to the show-if mostly unseen (and when he does, its as a human named Stone Philips) - of The Shat as The Big Giant Head, offering daft but always enjoyable comedic value as their boss. |
| Dick (John Lithgow) gives Stone a welcome hug! Image: NBC TV. |
COLUMBO: FADE IN TO MURDER (1976)
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| When detectives meet! Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) and the fictitious TV crime solver Detective Lucerno, as played by The Shat, in FADE IN TO MURDER. Image: UNIVERSAL PLAYBACK. |
Its always great when you get to see your heroes go bad in other roles, and The Shat certainly got to show that evil side a lot in seventies TV prior to his return as Kirk in the STAR TREK movies series (starting from 1979 onwards), in two popular COLUMBO episodes, but his first appearance from 1976 is the best, where he plays a bitter soap actor, playing the popular white suited Detective Lucerno on TV, who, using drugs and a specially set video recorder (then a rarity for the general public to have), kills his lover and frames her husband for the crime. But then Lt. Columbo, aided by Sgt. Johnson (a nice guest appearance from fellow STAR TREKer Walter Koenig), arrives on the scenes and ruins it all by saying those priceless four little word: “Just one more question…”
THE BARBARY COAST (1975-76)  |
| Comes the horsemen. TV legends The Shat and Doug McClure in the short-lived THE BARBARY COAST. Image: ABC TV. |
It may have been a very short-lived series, but this WILD, WILD WEST-like/ MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE hybrid 1974 series mixing spies with western adventure set in San Francisco’s then notorious and often bawdy Barbary Coast, was lightly enjoyable fluff, with The Shat as lead hero Jeff Cable, an action man with a knack for disguises, accompanied by his con man/gambler partner, Cash Conover (the legendary Doug McClure). BARBARY sadly didn’t quite hit the target with audiences in 1975/76, though, with its interesting premise, it could probably be re-made quite successfully now.
THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIAL (1970 TV MOVIE)  |
| As Prosecutor Norton P. Chipman, The Shat takes on Richard Basehart as Henry Wirz in the acclaimed TV production of THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIALS. Image: PBS. |
Set in Washington D.C. during the aftermath of the 1865 American Civil War, this would be rightly regarded as one of The Shat’s career best performances post STAR TREK, in which he plays a determined prosecution attorney/ex-Union soldier, Norton P. Chipman, eager to launch the death penalty against a ruthless ex-Confederacy prison camp enemy commander, Lt. Henry Wirz (played both with style and fierce anger by the late Richard Basehart), whose many captured Union soldier occupants died under the harshest and cruelest of conditions in an early equivalent of the kind of terrors inflicted on the Jews by the Germans in their Second World War death camps. As relevant then as it is today, this moral drama of guilt, anger, choices of responsibility and following orders in a time of war, may be a bit stagey by today’s production standards (in fact it was a 1959 stage production by Saul Levitt, of which this TV version, made by the small-time but prestigious PBS network in the US, deliberately follows that presentation, being shot on video “as-live”), but the all-star cast, which also includes Buddy Ebsen, Jack Cassidy and a very young Martin Sheen, are first class alongside a compelling Shatner, showing his always unique acting traits, working from Levitt’s fine script, and directed with verve by legendary actor George C. Scott.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: “ENCORE” (1971)
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| Gangster Thomas Kroll finds himself caught in a time trap by the IMF team in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. Image: CBS/PARAMOUNT. |
“Your mission, Jim, should you chose to accept it…” Those familiar taped message words to Impossible Missions Force leader Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) would always signal the start of a barmy but highly enjoyable weekly adventure, and this one, from the shows sixth season in 1971, is no exception, as the group have to snare an old-time gangster who’s managed to evade the law and prosecution for years, Thomas Kroll (Shat), and come up with a plot that, using drugs and specialized make-up, “de-ages” him, and places him within his once home gangster turf, now painlessly recreated from its prior derelict city block status, so as to gain evidence and convict him of his partaking of a notorious murder. The Shat is clearly having a great time in this episode, and the aging make-up is effectively comic strip, as is the script from later STAR TREK movie writer Harold Livingston, but it’s a very memorable episode, especially in its exciting and satisfying final scenes…
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: “THE PROJECT STRIGAS AFFAIR” (1964)
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| It's a spies life when The Shat helps the MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. in THE PROJECT STRIGAS AFFAIR. Image: MGM/UNITED ARTISTS. |
Determined to stop an ambitious third power diplomat, Kurasov (played by HOGANS HEROES Werner Klemperer), who wants to escalate tensions between the East and the West, those dapper men from the UNCLE organization create an elaborate scam involving a fake engineer character (in reality a recruited innocent: enthusiastic-to-help member of the public/pest exterminator Michael Donfield (The Shat), accompanied by his wife, Anne (Peggy Ann Garner)) possessing equally fake information on a top secret project called Strigas which he’s willing to sell to the highest bidder-being Kurasov- so as to ridicule him and ruin his career in front of his superiors. An enjoyable and quirky early episode from THE MAN FROM UNCLE’s first black and white 1964 season, its the type of story that would never have been made in its later more Bond’ish colour seasons, and features an additional small supporting role from TREK’s Vulcan-to-be, Leonard Nimoy, as Kurasov’s badly treated consulate official. Sadly, The Shat and Nimoy have few major scenes together in the episode but that would change a year or so later on a whole different, but just as popular series...
“THE TWILIGHT ZONE”: “NICK OF TIME” (1960) and “NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET” (1963)
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| Is The Shat goign insane, or is there really a creature outside his window? It's the air journey from hell, and a NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET. Image: CBS. |
Much lampooned now by the likes of Jim Carrey in ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE, and even by Shatner himself in more recent times, NIGHTMARE is quite easily one of the best, most well remembered episodes of the iconic anthology series which is now a firm fixture of Americana, created by the chain smoking scripting visionary that was the late Rod Serling, who brought fascinating tales to B/W TV sets everywhere which mixed horror, sci-fi, fantasy and morality into neat little half hour episodes over five successful years, and which featured contributions from numerous talented writers, directors and actors. Shatner would ultimately appear in two episodes that have stood the test of time well. Scripted by the ever reliable King of Horror, Richard Matheson, NIGHTMARE has the recently recovered from a mental breakdown Bob Wilson making a plane journey home with his wife, when, on that fateful dark and stormy night, he sees a terrifying Gremlin creature flying on the planes wings and making numerous attempts to sabotage it. As Bob tries to convince his wife and the planes crew of the creature’s existence he must soon resort to desperate measures, even if it looks like he’s back on the path to a breakdown, in order to stop it. This classic tale, directed with atmosphere by major leaguer Richard Donner and featuring weird but memorable creature make-up from STAR TREK’s Bill Tuttle, was eventually re-made as part of the Steven Spielberg produced TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE re-make in the early eighties, with John Lithgow taking over The Shat’s part, but, despite its age, this original version remained the best…
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| Can fate be decided. The Shat, accompanied by Patricia Breslin, ponders the consequences of the Fortune Telling machine in NICK OF TIME. Image: CBS. |
NICK OF TIME, made before NIGHTMARE, may not be as well known a tale, but, also from the pen of Matheson, is creepily enjoyable in different ways, as husband and wife Don and Pat Carter (The Shat and Patricia Breslin) arrive in a small Ohio town and discover a fortune telling machine whose predictions, at first benign, start to affect their relationship and their ability to enjoy life. This tale, which would later be re-made in 2010 as a horror vehicle for Cameron Diaz: THE BOX, plays more on emotional drama level in sustaining a different kind of fright…
THE OUTER LIMITS: “COLD HANDS, WARM HEART” (1964)
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| It's not a Venusian lullaby for The Shat when he meets an unsual alien life force in THE OUTER LIMITS. Image: MGM/UNITED ARTISTS. |
Before going off into futuristic space on the U.S.S. Enterprise, The Shat played an astronaut in sixties America who goes up where no man has gone before, part of “Project: Vulcan” no less!, and encounters an unusual alien life force on Venus that soon renders him with an inability to stay warm, in this intriguing second season tale of the enjoyable anti-TWILIGHT ZONE anthology series, which would be full of weird and wonderful monsters and creepy, equally memorable horror, first created in 1964 by PSYCHO script writer Joseph Stefano, with Leslie Stevens. COLD HANDS is not the best of the bunch by any means, but it’s still a very watchable tale in The Shat’s capable hands, in which he’s backed up with a fine supporting cast and challenged by a very weird looking monster that looks a bit like the Pepperami animal from the British commercials, but with a lot of hair and in outer space!
All of these series are available in varying Region 1 and 2 DVD releases.
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