Questionable Trek vol. 22

Last week, we tried to recast Jean Luc Picard. This week we're headed straight into the land of sacrilege.

Question: Who would you cast as James T. Kirk other than William Shatner?


Andrew's Answer: Adam West. Just kidding. To me, this is WAY harder than last week because William Shatner made James T. Kirk into a true icon. But do this we must. I considered three choices originally, but only one of them ultimately worked. My first thought was William Holden, who is just all kinds of tough-guy awesome. But Holden’s kind of a loner, so he doesn’t work. My next thought was Jeffrey Hunter, who was excellent as Capt. Christopher Pike. But I think he’s too angry for a full series. Then it hit me. In the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” Kirk ends up killing best friend Gary Mitchell, played by Gary Lockwood, who has the distinction of being killed by two icons: Kirk and HAL in 2001! He’s got the right mix of strength, compassion, brains and seat-of-the-pants leadership. He’s not a sexy choice, but he’d be a good one.

Scott's Answer: This might sound like a bit of a cheat and I'll explain why but I would have to say Leslie Nielsen. Originally, I had considered Nielsen's Airplane! co-star Lloyd Bridges but he was a decade too old. Before Nielsen became a comedy icon, he was actually a serious actor and the reason this answer could be considered a cheat is because Nielsen had already played a Kirk-esque spaceship commander in the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet, which was one of Gene Roddenberry's inspirations for Star Trek. But he was a handsome leading man, with an air of authority, whom you could see leading a crew into battle. And whenever they encountered a weird space anomaly, he could say, "I haven't seen anything like this since the Anita Bryant concert." (That was an Airplane! reference.)