Regardless of his relationship with the fans in public, William Shatner will always be beloved by the majority of Trekkies because of his iconic portrayal of James T. Kirk. Where would Star Trek be today, nearly 60 years later, without Kirk and Star Trek: The Original Series after all? Well, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes voiced his praise for not only Shatner, but Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley in a brand-new interview on the State of Mind with Maurice Benard podcast. Frakes said of the trio's iconic characters and their on-screen chemistry.
“Shatner and Nimoy, yeah. Spock and Bones [Kelley], and Kirk, that’s who we aspired to. Well, they had that chemistry, they had that ironic chemistry the three of them had. That was: boom! He’s [Shatner] still kicking it, 94. I see him about once a month at a con [convention], and sometimes he’ll do cons, two cons in a weekend. He’s astounding. Sharp as a tack, curious, interesting, thoughtful, funny.”
It proved difficult to replicate the chemistry Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy shared on screen in The Original Series, and the six films which featured the TOS cast, in other Star Trek properties. In fact, the closest any Trek-related show every came to recreating the trio's closeness was in Star Trek: Enterprise, which ran from 2001 until 2005 on television.
Captain Archer (Scott Bakula), T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), and Trip's (Connor Trinneer) terrific triad emulated Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's chemistry, but didn't surpass it. However, what Frakes and the cast who portrayed the crew of the USS Enterprise-D in The Next Generation did accomplish was invent their own Core-7 characters.
Fans of The Original Series could always count on the friendship and chemisty between Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty (James Doohan), Mr. Sulu (George Takei), Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Mr. Chekov (Walter Koenig). And as The Next Generation grew in popularity, while on television, the show's own Core-7 characters took shape as did their fascinating camaraderie.
In many ways, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), Commander Riker (Frakes), Counsellor Troi (Marina Sirtis), Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and Dr. Beverly Crusher's (Gates McFadden) on-screen chemistry even exceed that of the Core-7 TOS characters.
One needs look no further than those memorable poker games which not only wrapped up the series finale of TNG perfectly, but came back full circle to conclude the wonderfully nostalgic return of the Enterprise-D's crew in the Star Trek: Picard season 3 finale.
Jonathan Frakes' praise of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy couldn't have been said any better. However, here is to you Mr. Frakes and your own wonderful Core-7 cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a wonderful show, and I'd certainly love to see William Riker and company once again on the big or small screen someday soon. Paramount Skydance, please make it so.
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Live long and prosper, Trekkies!