In a 75-year career, William Shatner’s range has spanned from Shakespeare and Sophocles to Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock to Priceline.com, David E. Kelley, and countless documentaries about the mysteries of the universe. Musically, he has covered Elton John and U2 and recorded with Joe Jackson and Brad Paisley.
As we reflect on Star Trek‘s history for its 60th anniversary, we’re looking back on Shatner’s career outside of his time playing Captain Kirk. After Star Trek, he went on to find TV success with T.J. Hooker and TekWar, the latter of which is based on books he wrote. In our exclusive interview with Shatner for the special Star Trek anniversary, he explained the similarities between the two shows.
“I was doing T.J. Hooker and I thought, I love a good mystery and I love the way the police and forensics solve crime. And I’m glued to them,” Shatner said. “So I wrote, with help, 10 books called TekWar in which a policeman who is in a 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 now TekWar is being bandied about to be an animated series as we speak.”
Stretching from The Twilight Zone in the 1960s to The Masked Singer in 2022, here are a few of the places you might have seen Shatner loom large on the small screen.
TV Guide Magazine’s Star Trek: The Captains Special Issue is available for order online now at StarTrek.TVGM2026.com, and for purchase on newsstands nationwide.