Captain James T. Kirk

The premise of the sixties show was that having achieved the ability to exceed the speed of light via warp drive technology, the USS Enterprise, under the aegis of the quasi-military organization Star Fleet, was sent on a five year mission 'to explore strange new planets, to seek out new life and new civilization', to, as the show's dramatic voice-over concludes 'boldly go where no man has gone before'. (The next installation of the Star Trek franchise changed 'no man' to the more gender-sensitive 'no one'.)

In effect, the Enterprise is the functional equivalent of the ships that first circumnavigated the globe and discovered the 'New World' (never mind that it had been there all along). In this exploratory environment, far from oversight or ruling authorities, the Captain becomes the absolute monarch, and it takes a certain breed to embrace the risks without becoming a despot.

William Shatner = James T. Kirk

William Shatner plays Kirk in every instantiation of the character's role, whether it is on the original Star Trek, subsequent Star Trek series' or original series movie spinoffs. Beloved as much for his slightly hammy over-dramatizations as for his character's very real strong points, Shatner has gone on to star in other television series in other roles, but none were quite as defining as James T. Kirk.

Rogue, Rake and Raconteur

Kirk's character is imbued with some of the characteristics of another sixties icon, British master spy James Bond. Never married, yet never without female admiration, both characters embodied the Hugh Hefner ideal of the 'playboy', with women in every port of call. Both remained married to, and loyal to, their respective careers.

That said, Kirk found plenty of alternate universes to be more or less in rakish character - the Mongol-hordes style leader of the Mirror, Mirror universe, with his 'Captain's Woman', the Native American-esque culture of The Paradise Syndrome, in which he loses his memory, marries and is about to become a father when both wife and unborn son are killed, and the '20s City on the Edge of Forever, in which he falls in love with a goodie-two-shoes and is forced to watch her die.

Captain as Friend

Perhaps Kirk (and Shatner) is at his best on the comedic episodes, with his deadpan reactions to hundreds of cascading tribbles, for instance. Confounding literal-minded androids and foiling omnipotent aliens is all in a day's work for the resourceful Captain.

But Kirk is best remembered as one-third of the Star Trek triumverate - Kirk, Spock and McCoy. If Mr. Spock represents the rational side of humanity (for all his Vulcanity - it's a human show, after all) and Dr. McCoy represents the emotional side of humanity, it can be said that Captain Kirk is a pleasing mixture of both, that he is the balance between the left and right sides of the brain.