Star Trek's William Shatner Starred In One Of The Worst Adaptations Of The '90s

William Shatner's "TekWar" was born in the late 1980s on the troubled set of "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," a film Shatner was directing at the time. According to an article on the Retro Vision Magazine website, there was a lot of downtime on the "Star Trek" set (thanks to a workers' strike), and Shatner's mind began to wander, idly creating a universe built out of his two best-known acting projects: "Star Trek" and "T.J. Hooker." Without (admittedly) putting too much thought into it, Shatner began to write a police story set 200 years in the future. It centered on a cop character named Jake Cardigan and Tek, a super-addictive, technology-based drug that takes the form of a microchip that people use to create dangerous augmented reality experiences. These experiences are so strong that they can potentially destroy your brain.

In the first novel, which was published in 1989 and simply titled "TekWar," Jake is wrongfully imprisoned for dealing Tek and cryogenically frozen for four years. He is then released into the care of Walt Bascom, a benevolent helper who entreats Jake to track down and arrest the masterminds behind the Tek trade.

"TekWar" was successful enough to warrant a whole series of sequel books — all of which were credited to Shatner but ghost-written by Rob Goulart — that were released through to 1997. It also spawned a spin-off "TekWorld" Marvel comic book series in 1992, along with a mid-profile USA Network TV series that ran for two seasons from 1994 to 1996. On the show, Shatner played Bascom, while Greg Evigan played Jake. It's ... okay. Nothing extraordinary, but somewhat clever. It was very derivative, though, and hasn't inspired a lot of nostalgia since it went off the air.

"TekWar" also infamously inspired a CD-ROM video game called "William Shatner's TekWar" in 1995. The video game was a first-person shooter and was narrated by Shatner himself in character as Bascom. It was ... unique, but most folks absolutely hated it.

The story for the "TekWar" video game was narrated via cutscenes at the beginning of every level, each one starring Shatner. He would explain missions to the player and send them into a complex series of subway tunnels that connected the in-game world. The player wasn't explicitly Jake, the "TekWar" protagonist, but they did play as an ex-cop who served as one of Bascom's rogue agents. In a twist on most FPS games at the time, one could shoot any and all NPCs they wanted in "TekWar."

Of course, that kind of mayhem was discouraged. Indeed, when the player drew their gun in a non-combat scenario, NPCs would recoil or flee, a new mechanic in 1995. If one could beat the game (by killing all the villainous TekLords) without startling or shooting civilians, Shatner would applaud their tactics. If one did shoot NPCs, though, then they were thrown into prison at the end, and Shatner would lambaste your cavalier violence. The game also involved the player collecting glyphs that they could carry into a virtual reality world called the Matrix. (Yes, this game came out four years before the birth of the Wachowski sisters' "Matrix" franchise.) Once all the TekLords had been killed, the Matrix could be shut down, ending the world's Tek delivery system.

"William Shatner's TekWar" was reviewed in the February 1996 issue of NEXT Generation Magazine, and the outlet hated it, giving it one star out of five. The reviewer pointed out that it was fresh and fun that NPCs would respond to the player drawing a gun, but they were also frustrated that the NPCs didn't respond to enemies in the same way. If NPCs were around during a gunfight, then, they would join the villain in fighting the player, making the gamer unduly hard. They concluded that only Shatner obsessives would enjoy it ... maybe.

"William Shatner's TekWar" came and went without much fanfare, however. It wasn't a hit, causing only a small ripple in the video game world. If one wants to experience a pixelated flashback to the way high-tech (high Tek?) video games looked in 1995, one can easily find gameplay footage online.

Indeed, one might say that of the "TekWar" franchise in general. It seemed to be little more than a not-very-creative vanity project from its creator. Shatner, for his part, claimed he had gotten the inspiration for "TekWar" from his own personal reliance on television. In the Retro Vision interview, Shatner said that he would use his TV to help him go to sleep, even if he was awakened in the middle of the night. He felt it was like a drug and began to think about tech-based drugs. As for the name, it's hard not to assume that Shatner merely looked at the word "Trek" on the script of "Star Trek" and simply dropped a letter.

In 1997, the whole "TekWar" franchise seemingly vanished without a trace. The Marvel Comics series had run its course, the TV show had been canceled, and the game had come and gone. No one has talked about "TekWar" since then, other than a few fanatical Trekkies who are interested in Shatner's ancillary projects. "TekWar" exists in a strange memory netherrealm where it was successful enough to be in the public consciousness for several straight years, but not successful enough to stick around in any kind of meaningful way. It makes one wonder how many other notable sci-fi projects haven't been recorded.

Curiously, Deadline actually reported a "TekWar" adult animated series was in the works back in 2021. As of 2025, however, the project has yet to come to fruition and it may be dead altogether. "TekWar," we hardly knew ye. We remember the failure of "Star Trek V" better.