Shatner boldly goes where he hasn’t gone before

It’s hard to believe that there’s something William Shatner hasn’t done. Or, for that matter, isn’t doing right now.

But Shatner, who is turning 87 on Thursday, has a first coming up in Milwaukee on March 24.

That night, he’ll be at the Riverside Theater for a screening of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” after which he’ll take questions from the audience and tell stories about the making of the 1982 movie, still considered one of the best of the 13 movies in the never-ending sci-fi franchise.

“This is the first show of its kind,” Shatner said, adding he wasn’t sure what to expect.

“I do know that it will be fun.” Apparently, for Shatner, fun is keeping really, really busy.

Last month saw the second-season finale of “Better Late Than Never,” the NBC reality series in which Shatner and three other pop-culture oldsters, including Milwaukee’s informal favorite son Henry Winkler, travel to strange places and do stranger things.

He’s still doing commercials for local law firms, including Milwaukee’s Hupy & Abraham.

He’s recording two albums this year: one with Western songs, with Jeff Cook of the group Alabama; and “an offbeat Christmas album.” (”I’ve got all my tracks down,” Shatner said.)

“I have to make people laugh and think …,” Shatner said. “I’m busy on all fronts.”

And then there’s this “Star Trek II” venture. Saturday’s screening and audience chat will be the first of a 10-city excursion for the Man Who Will Always Be Kirk.

In case it’s been awhile since you’ve seen it, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” continues the story of the Starship Enterprise, with Capt. James Kirk (Shatner) and company brought back to face Khan (Ricardo Montalban), a 20th-century Earth superman who, after a run-in on the original “Star Trek” series, was left with his followers to start anew on an isolated planet where, unfortunately, things took a turn for the worst.

At the time, Shatner noted, it was far from a sure thing that there would be a “Star Trek II” at all.

The first “Star Trek” movie was released in 1979, more than a decade after the original series was canceled. It wasn’t exactly a blockbuster.

“The first one didn’t get good notices, and they’d spent a lot of money on it,” Shatner recalled. “It looked like they were going to cancel” the sequel.

But Yvette Bluhdorn, the wife of the CEO of the parent company of Paramount Pictures, told her husband, Charles Bluhdorn, “You’ve got to make another one.”

So Paramount did.

“We were crossing our fingers,” Shatner said. “… I looked at it recently. It moves slowly in the beginning, but you’re kind of captivated by the intrigue. … It’s a good story.”

Part of what made “Star Trek II” work, Shatner said, was the decision to depict Kirk as a hero who, confronting middle age, is about to be put out to pasture.

“As time went on, we tried to give him more character,” the actor said of the character. “Those of us over 75 know we’re a step slower — or maybe three.”

Although Shatner had numerous memorable moments in the role, the Kirk from “Star Trek II” is the one fans come back to — especially the moment in the movie when Kirk, realizing Khan is going to leave them to die, yells out “Khaaannn!!”

People still come up to Shatner and do their impression of that scene.

“It’s very strange what people latch onto,” Shatner said, chuckling.

Kirk isn’t the only character people want to talk about. There’s also Denny Crane, the off-the-rails lawyer Shatner played on “Boston Legal,” earning six Emmy nominations and two Emmys.

Before that there were other roles, and not just on screens. He starred in a touring production of “The Seven Year Itch” that came to Milwaukee’s Center Stage Playhouse in 1974. And in 2012, he brought his one-man Broadway show to the Riverside.

His 2004 album “Has Been,” an engaging look at celebrity and its discontents, led to another Milwaukee connection. The Milwaukee Ballet created a work based on the album, and Shatner had a crew film the production, resulting in an award-winning documentary, 2009’s “William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet.”

It’s hard to see a through-line in all of these enterprises. But not for Shatner, who keeps on working — and plugging his own work along the way.

“I see myself as an entertainer, that’s all,” he said. “Which was a line written for me by Brad Paisley” (in the song “Real,” on “Has Been”).