The Final Frontiers

William Shatner explores true life weirdness in the unxplained. SFX boldly goes with him

- Nick Setchfield

Our lives are consumed in mysteries,” says William Shatner, on the line to SFX from his home in California. He has career experience when it comes to the inexplicable. As James T Kirk in Star Trek, his entire mission statement was to search out strange new worlds. The cold reaches of Kirk’s cosmos concealed such phenomena as salt vampires, incorporeal serial killers, and the occasional Greek god. TJ Hooker’s beat, it’s fair to say, was considerably less freaky.

Now Shatner’s back fronting The unexplained, a documentary series that explores the fringes of science and history, from murderous cults to miraculous meteorites, cursed islands to extraterrestrial contact. It’s a subject that clearly enthuses him. He may be in lockdown when he speaks to SFX but the Shatner brain rockets to the edges of reality as talks turn to all things unknown…

On a sliding scale between skepticism and a willingness to believe, where would you place yourself?