Patrick Stewart’s about to return to the world of Star Trek for a brand new TV series in which he’ll reprise his fan favorite role as Jean-Luc Picard. Given that, is there any chance that the franchise’s other iconic Enterprise captain would return for his own vehicle? Well, we’ve previously heard that William Shatner’s willing to turn up for a cameo if there’s a good enough reason, but would he reprise his role of James Tiberius Kirk as the star of the show?
The actor spoke with ComicBook.com recently and explained that for this to happen, not only would the character of Kirk need to be resurrected after his death in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations, but he’d also have to be rejuvenated himself, as the 87-year-old doesn’t think he could deal with the tall task of leading a TV show nowadays.
“That word, ‘resurrect.’ That’s a key word. Resurrect. You’d have to resurrect me, Shatner, in order to do the daily [laughes] I don’t what Patrick is doing doing that. Doing a series is debilitating for a young guy, for a 25-year-old, which I was doing when I was 25 years old. It’s a physical wrecker, it’s a mental wrecker, and it’s a homewrecker ‘cause you’re working 14, 18 hours a day. And in the last series I did, Boston Legal, I had, in rush hour, a two-hour commute. So add that.”
Having ruled out a Kirk series, Shatner then teased that he does have a few new roles lined up. One of which we know is his upcoming guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory, with the actor saying the following about it:
“So no, I would not be interested in doing a series, per se, but I will be on the air in something this year in something I can’t tell you about right now, but you’ll hear about it soon, and maybe on two and maybe even three shows that’ll be on for 10, 12, 14 episodes.”
Interestingly, Shatner’s successor as Kirk may have also said goodbye to the character recently. Chris Pine reportedly walked away from Star Trek 4 due to contractual disputes, leaving the fourth Kelvin timeline movie on hiatus. Given that we’ve just got a new Spock in the form of Ethan Peck on Star Trek: Discovery, however, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that a young Kirk could show up in future seasons, too.
For now, though, we can at least look forward to Patrick Stewart’s new Star Trek show, which we’re pretty sure will be called Picard and is expected to arrive later this year.
