William Shatner’s Most Memorable TV Roles Outside of ‘Star Trek’
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.
The Twilight Zone
Shatner famously starred in two classic episodes of the 1959–64 sci-fi horror anthology series. In the best of them, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” he plays a frightened passenger haunted by a destructive gremlin that only he can see on the wing of a plane.
T.J. Hooker
The 1982–86 police procedural, with Shatner as a Vietnam War vet turned detective who goes back to uniform work to fight crime, helped make a star out of Heather Locklear (above, with James Darren and Shatner).
TekWar
Shatner created this series based on the futuristic novels he cowrote. In the 1994–96 drama, a cop (Greg Evigan, above, with Shatner), released in 2044 from cryogenic prison after being framed for a crime, is hired by a large security firm to fight drug kingpin “Tek Lords.”
Boston Legal
Shatner (with, from left, Meredith Patterson, Mark Valley, Lake Bell, James Spader and Rhonda Mitra) took his eccentric Denny Crane character from The Practice to this 2004–08 legal drama and won two Emmys for the David E. Kelleycreated role.
The Masked Singer
“It was horrible! The mask was obliterating! I couldn’t walk! Oh, was that fun!” Shatner joked after singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and being eliminated on the first night of the popular celebrity competition series’ 2022 Season 8.
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I would add to the list the episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Project Strigas Affair - in which he appeared with Leonard Nimoy. It's a hoot seeing them together, pre-Star Trek, and it's one of the best episodes of U.N.C.L.E.
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I love Shatner, He's either fantastic or horrible In everything he does, but always entertaining.
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M
I enjoyed his rolls in The Big Valley and The Virginian as well.
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Wheres big giant head
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They didnt mention Rescue 911!
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Also did not mention he was the lead actor in the TV series Barbary Coast.
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Outer Limits, Thriller, Colombo, Mission Impossible, Mannix.
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I just found out about the series Thriller with Boris Karloff, had never heard of it before. I watched 2 episodes with Shatner as a main character. One titled The Grim Reaper also starred Mrs. Howell from Gilligan's Island. The other called The Hungry Mirror also had the Professor Russell Johnson and Ellie Mae from the Beverly Hillbillies! Very entertaining and for me nostalgic.
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K
Anyone who can eat a bowl of cereal while driving deserves my respect.
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Is there anything Shatner hasn't done?
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Denny Crane!
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