I enjoy William Shatner’s half-hour talk show on the Biography Channel, Raw Nerve. The show features an intimate conversation with various guests, and I like that Shatner asks each guest to bring an object from home that has some special meaning. William Shatner is not a trained inteviewer, but he is William Shatner and he brings his Shatnerness to each show. Although he interviews a wide variety of guests, a few shows have featured Star Trek alum, and one show revealed Walter Koenig, who played Chekhov on the original series, to be quite thoughtful about his career. It was also interesting to see Shatner struggle with how he has treated other cast members disrespectfully in the past.
William Shatner, who turned 80 last Tuesday, has a personality that has aged well. He makes a good career of mocking his image as a younger man who was full of himself. One of the best things one can do in maturity is to laugh at one’s younger self.
Time Magazine recently did a fun feature of The Top 10 Unforgettable William Shatner Moments, only a few of which involve any scenes from Star Trek. One of my favorite moments is from the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards, where William Shatner’s performs Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” What is better than one William Shatner? Three William Shatners! The video starts off amazing and just gets better, so make sure you hang around for the second and third William Shatners to appear. Unfortunately, there is no evil Shatner with a goatee but there is a lot of cigarette smoking.
While his performance of “Rocket Man” above is great because it is funny, Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s “Common People” with Joe Jackson is just a great version of of a great song. I have it on my iPod by choice.
“It was fun.” — James T. Kirk, in Star Trek: Generations.
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