William Shatner may be forever associated with Captain James T. Kirk, but in 1982, the Star Trek star traded one uniform for another as Sgt. Hooker. T.J. Hooker gave Shatner a very different kind of hero to play: a veteran cop who frequently put himself directly in the line of fire.
And Shatner loved his time behind the badge.
While speaking with TV Guide Magazine for “60 Years of Star Trek,” Shatner reflected on his time on the police drama, how working on the series gave him a newfound appreciation for the men and women who do the job in real life, and how his time on the show led to interesting opportunities.
“I enjoyed it very much. It was well written. Ex-policemen were on it. I got to know the police force. I have great admiration for so many of the men and women who are doing that duty,” said Shatner. “We go that way, and the police go that way. That in itself is a learned response, and there’s no lack of fear, but it’s overcoming that fear which is what policemen have to do.”
But T.J. Hooker didn’t just give Shatner a greater appreciation for police work. His fascination with how crimes are investigated and solved ultimately followed him beyond the series and into another project.
“I have forgotten I did — or I forgot to remember, better way of putting it — that a book company came to me [and asked] what would I like to write about, and I was doing T.J. Hooker,” he shared. “And I thought, you know…I love a good mystery. I love the way the police and forensics solve crime. And I’m glued. ‘Oh, they did that, and they got a hair there, and they got a thing there and microscope him.’”
USA Network / courtesy Everett Collection
“So I wrote — with help — 10 books called TekWar, in which a policeman, who’s in the deep freeze, is released to help the bad guy find the other bad guy. So, a policeman comes out of jail to resurrect his good name and to find his family. And that’s the progression. That’s the one-line through-line of TekWar,” he said.
The science-fiction mystery series was created by Shatner and ghostwritten by author Ron Goulart. The cyberpunk story followed Jake Cardigan, an ex-cop who was framed for selling a drug called Tek and becomes a private investigator to hunt down drug lords.
TekWar was adapted into a TV series from 1994 to 1996, with Shatner himself playing Walter H. Bascom, the powerful boss of the security firm Cosmos. Decades later, there could still be more TekWar to come, with an animated adaptation remaining a possibility.
“And now TekWar is being bandied about to be an animated series as we speak. That may be happening,” said Shatner.
—Reporting by Rob Edelstein