Zachary Quinto goes ‘In Search Of’ the world’s great mysteries

About a decade ago, Zachary Quinto went where only one man had gone before when he took on the iconic role of Spock in the reimagined “Star Trek” movies.

Now, he follows in the footsteps of his late friend and “Trek” predecessor Leonard Nimoy, exploring the world’s greatest mysteries as host, lead investigator and executive producer of “In Search Of,” which airs Fridays on History.

“I was really interested in the idea of reimagining the series, and bringing a new perspective to it,” the 41-year-old Pittsburgh native explains, “first of all with regard to all the advancements in science and technology that we benefited from in the last 40 years, and secondly in terms of format and the ways in which to tell these different stories.

“You know, Leonard was very much a traditional host of the show,” he says, referring to the original 1977-82 series. “He would welcome the audience and then throw it to a package that had already been produced outside of the studio. And I was really interested in what would happen if I went on these journeys and dove into the searches themselves.”

Indeed, Quinto brings a skeptic’s mindset to the phenomena he investigates – be they the search for alien life, time travel, the lost continent of Atlantis, mysterious creatures or artificial intelligence – exploring these mysteries through the eyes of witnesses and scholars as well as with demonstrations and experiments.

Some are confounding, others are eerie and yet others are surprising, such as in the premiere episode, where Quinto interviewed people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.

“What I learned about myself is that I need proof,” Quinto says. “You know, I’m certainly not here to discredit anybody’s experience or say that something they went through didn’t actually happen. But if you can’t show me proof then I am much less likely to come along for the ride fully.