When William Shatner Went Cyberpunk #cyberpunk

In 1993, I was sitting at my computer one day (OK, every day since 1987) when the phone rang. “Hello, this is Bill Shatner’s assistant calling. He would like to order a copy of your Beyond Cyberpunk! program” At the time, we’d just raised the price of BCP! from $35 to $39. She told him of the price change and I heard Bill say “That’s fine.” He was apparently standing right next to her. I remember thinking it was funny that she felt she needed to get approval for an additional $4 and that he’d had her call when he was right there. The next thing she was doing was handing over Captain Kirk’s credit card number.

I knew at the time that Shatner was “writing” (with a ghost writer) a series of cyberpunk novels, the TekWar series. What I didn’t know was that he was in the middle of creating TV movies and a series based on the novels. I’ve always wondered what influence, if any, Beyond Cyberpunk! may have had on these.

In this Forgotten Television episode, they look at the TekWar series. I didn’t watch many of the episodes, but I did like the way they handled Tek, a microchip-based digital drug, and explored the ravages of digital addiction (something we can all relate to today).


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