Captain's Log: "I Don't Have a Tunic!" — What Shatner and Ben Stiller Actually Did at NYCC
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Ben Stiller owns a Kirk tunic and a Gorn head. William Shatner owns neither. The Beat's recap of the NYCC Star Trek panel has the details, framed here as one outlet's account.
Captain's log, stardate 103942.3. There is a genre of convention moment that no press release can plan: a legend sits down, a fan pulls a box out from under a black cloth, and the room loses its mind.
That is what happened at the end of the Star Trek Universe panel at New York Comic Con on Saturday. We covered who was on the stage and what the panel announced for Starfleet Academy. This post is about the other half of the hour: William Shatner and Ben Stiller.
A note on sourcing before the good bits. The detailed account below comes from one outlet, The Beat's panel recap by Zoë Rice, published October 11. Bleeding Cool and other outlets confirm the headline moment, the Gorn head, but I could not find a second write-up of the quotes. Where I quote Shatner, I am quoting The Beat's report of what he said.
The rapport
The Beat describes the conversation as comedic. Stiller, a lifelong fan, led it, and Shatner joked about the franchise's early setbacks and about his hotel room, which became a running gag during the hour.
The Cage
According to The Beat, Shatner recalled being asked to watch the first pilot, The Cage, with the hope of joining a second pilot. He said, "it was magical," despite the pilot needing changes.
That is a real piece of Trek history. The Cage starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike, and NBC asked for a second pilot. Where No Man Has Gone Before brought in Shatner as Kirk. It's a good story for the week that Anson Mount's Pike is finishing his own run in Strange New Worlds.
The tunic
Stiller showed original-series clips and filmed Shatner's reactions to them. After a scene from The Enemy Within (TOS S1E5), the episode where a transporter accident splits Kirk in two, Stiller revealed that he owns the tunic worn in it. Shatner's reply, per The Beat: "I don't have a tunic!"
The Gorn head
The biggest audience reaction of the day, The Beat says, came when Stiller uncovered a box draped in black fabric to show a Gorn head from his collection. Bleeding Cool separately reports that Stiller surprised Shatner with the original Gorn head from his memorabilia collection. Another outlet earlier reported that Stiller keeps the Gorn's head from Arena (TOS S1E18). I would treat the Arena identification as reported rather than confirmed, since neither recap spells out the episode.
Also on the panel
The Beat quotes co-showrunner Noga Landau calling Laytha Sadal's visit, played by Rosemarie DeWitt as Tarima's mother, a "classic Star Trek Betazoid mom visit." Holly Hunter said Nyk Ake, played by Bill Nighy, brings plenty of emotional baggage. And the season 2 sneak peek showed a training away mission interrupted by a new character with a significant role in the season. The Beat doesn't name that character.
Why it works
The funniest line of the hour is a reminder of how strange Trek fandom is. The man who wore the uniform says he doesn't have the tunic, and a famous comedy director does. Trek has always been shared between the people who make it and the people who love it. For one hour in New York, those two groups got to swap places.
Make it so.
Live long and prosper.
Sources: The Beat (Comics Beat), Bleeding Cool.
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