A Goateed William Shatner Suggests We Have Entered The Mirror, Mirror Universe

By David Wharton | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Things have been kind of quiet in recent years on the William Shatner front. He wrapped up his stint as the inimitable Denny Crane on Boston Legal several years ago, and since then his resume has been an eclectic mix of the expected (The Captains documentary), the regrettable ($#*! My Dad Says), and the surprisingly powerful (Aftermath with William Shatner). Thankfully, fans of the Shat can always keep track of everyone’s favorite Dramatic Pauser via Shatner’s YouTube channel, and the actor recently posted a “Holiday Message to You from Shanta.” And while the brief video is surreal in several ways, there’s one particular thing that sticks out, and it’s as plain as the goatee on Shatner’s face…

Ignoring the fact that “Shanta” sounds like the worst beverage ever invented, long-time Trekkers will immediately realize that this is not, in fact, the William Shatner we’ve all come to know and love (unless you were on Star Trek with him), but instead his evil, goateed duplicate from the “Mirror, Mirror” universe. Yes, I’m afraid that William Shatner is almost certainly now bound and gagged in a windowless basement somewhere, or possibly decomposing in a heavily wooded area.

So what are Evil Shatner’s intentions? Perhaps in his universe, he was passed over for the lead role in Star Trek. After all these decades of watching his clean-shaven doppleganger become an undisputed pop culture icon, it seems Evil Shatner has finally found a way to cross the dimensional veil and take over his more famous self’s life.

“But wait!” you say. “That goatee in the video is clearly fake!” Ah, but that’s how clever Evil Shatner is. Upon arriving in our universe, he immediately shaved his goatee, knowing that it would give away his ruse, but then knowing that we knew that, he then added the fake facial hair to further obfuscate his identity. Devious!

“But wait again,” you say! “It was Evil Spock who had the goatee, not Evil Shatner!” Oh, you poor, naive fool. It’s that sort of fact-based thinking that will surely doom us all!