BILL SHATNER's NEW SHOW: HE IMPRESSED ME!

I think it was in the 1970s,
that we had 5 annual conventions in big hotels in Manhattan
for Star Trek. Thay were mindblowingly creative 3 day conventions.

Speakers included the series' writers, production staff, and
several of the cast members addressed the crowd, including Bill Shatner,
who played Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprize,
whose 5 year mission was to go where no man had gone before.
If anyone had gone there before, then it was his job to keep them
away from there.

Oddly, I found all of the other cast members to be much better,
more interesting, more intelligent speakers than Bill Shatner.
I was negatively surprized. I remember him standing up there
for about 20 minutes telling us repeatedly that he was going
to talk to us for a while, tho he never said ANYTHING of substance.
(This was some years before the convention when he made his
infamous "get a life" remark. That was another time.)

Tho I thought that he did a creditable job of portraying the Captain,
he seemed vapid & vacuous: pointlessly lost in insipidity;
an empty barrel, as an unscripted speaker.

I figured that his abilities were confined to performing from a script.

I reasoned: OK, so nobody 's perfect; he does a decent job as an actor;
I like his comedy work as a trial lawyer in Boston Legal, but this week,
I saw him interviewing a few people on his new, rather modest, talk show.

He has CHANGED. He shows that he is NOT stupid.

He is a GOOD interviewer.
Its almost as if he really WERE a trial attorney.

Something that trial attorneys do,
is take a lot of interviews, called depostions,
or examinations before trial, during which u fully explore
the relevant facts of pending litigation, by asking your opposing
litigants their versions of the relevant facts. A decent trial attorney
really gets to the meat of what happend, and fully understands it
before he is done. (That way u tend to avoid surprizes during trial.)

Shatner was GREAT: deeply insightful, in digging out the facts
and opinions of his interviewees. He was better than Barbara Walters.

I was very taken aback: what the hell happened ?
Maybe he matured or acquired knowledge in the last 30 some odd years.

Its a pleasure to watch someone do something really, really well.
He is a VERY good interviewer; whodathunkit ?

Has anyone seen his new show ?
Bill Shatner 's Raw Nerve

WHATAYATHINK ?





David