BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Watching William Shatner command a room is like watching Captain James T. Kirk command the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
In fact, at one point during Shatner's appearance at the Television Critics Association tour, there was an audible gasp when it was mentioned that he's 79 years old.
If you didn't know that beforehand, seeing him and hearing him, you would think he was far younger.
But when one of the producers of Shatner's new series $#*! My Dad Says described Shatner as "the youngest 79-year-old in the room," Shatner quipped, "There's nobody else that's 79. No wonder I'm the youngest."
Shatner, a Canadian cross-border entertainment-business legend, still has "it", whatever "it" is.
Honestly, listening to Shatner speak is far more entertaining than the pilot for $#*! My Dad Says, which is being partially re-cast and re-shot. But as always is prudent, we will reserve judgment until the final version makes it to air this fall on CBS and CTV.
$#*! My Dad Says was birthed from a Twitter phenomenon, courtesy of a guy who merely was repeating and reporting the crazy stuff his dad said. A book deal later, it has grown into a TV show, carving out a real 21st-century path to success.
"I don't Twitter - I can't even remember my password name," Shatner admitted. "So I have problems with electronics."
OK, let's get this straight. Captain Kirk has trouble with electronics? Really?
"So what I've done is I've hired a young man out of college, whose very fingers are the extension of computer keys, and he Twitters (for me)," Shatner said.
"He does the mechanics, but I very carefully modulate what I say and have used Twitter to publicize stuff, to have conversations, instigate competition. It has been an exploration in the immediate language of being short-termed and pithy, and I have had a growing and glowing experience with Twitter."
Of course, having a huge Twitter following does not necessarily translate to TV success. Last season, Ashton Kutcher urged his 5 million Twitter followers to watch his new series The Beautiful Life, and about 12 did.
"Wow - a flock didn't go watch?" Shatner asked rhetorically.
"But this show is a viral show. It is, in my limited imagination, an electronic miracle. It's a show that stems from the culture of now, not yesterday, but now. This is a show that is in front of the curve.
"But it's the precariousness, the peculiar quality of the people who do this, it seems, they can't be led. You can't force them to do something. It has to be suggested. It has to be laid out, and then you guys do what you want with it, sort of thing."
Ultimately, funny on Twitter, and funny in a book, and funny on TV may, in fact, be three different things. But the funny and thoughtful and curious William Shatner is a constant, and thank goodness.
"I started in live television, I was there when the cameras were as big as this table," said Shatner, who has another new show on History Television this fall called Weird or What?
"Now they put us in Paris (on $#*! My Dad Says) and we never leave the warmth of Warner Brothers (studios in Los Angeles). It is trying to catch the tiger by the tail.
"It's a miracle, what has happened to us. The miracle is our inventiveness, and the tragedy of our lives is our inventiveness. It's beyond irony. It's whatever term you guys can come up with."
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