Star Trek actor, writer, director and overall franchise icon William Shatner has weighed in on Patrick Stewart’s landmark return to Star Trek for his own CBS All-Access series centered around Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
“It’s wonderful news,” Shatner wrote on Twitter. “Congratulations my friend!”
Shatner, who of course played Captain (and eventual Admiral) James T. Kirk on Star Trek and seven of its subsequent films, starred alongside Stewart in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations. He also interviewed and directed Stewart in his documentary The Captains, which focused on the (then-)six leading Captains of the franchise over the years, zeroing in on each actor’s experience in the role and the impact it left on their lives.
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While Stewart is poised to return to his Picard role for the first time since 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, there’s yet to be any news of Shatner’s Star Trek comeback. However, Shatner has indicated he’s open to the idea. “I would play an old Captain Kirk, absolutely,” he told reporters years back. “You would have [to have] an interesting character, not a cameo, like ‘Here I am, aren’t I interesting?’ It’s the ongoing world, it’s the world within science-fiction. Yes, you age within the universe. Time goes on, but time bends, as well. There’s so many things you could do.”
Shatner almost appeared in 2009’s Star Trek, getting so far as a meeting with director J.J. Abrams, but the cameo didn’t end up happening.
