So you may be asking yourself, “What exactly is this site? And how do I use it?”
Really, there are two main purposes for its existence. First, Shatnerweb.com is a place to find all of the extant William Shatner appearances reviewed, in chronological order. I’m pretty sure that I have a collection of Shatner programs that would rival anyone in the world, and I want to move through each Shatner appearance chronologically in order to give the complete picture of the great man’s career. Some of the reviews might be quite long (like the first one, The Butler’s Night Off) while others might be only one or two paragraphs. I will be creating posts for appearances that I don’t own as well…if anyone out there has a copy, or any further information in general, please share it with me and I will update the review and credit you as well! In the meantime, the placeholder post will contain as much information about the missing program as I can reasonably dig up. Now, obviously these incomplete blog entries will not contain Ratings or Shat Levels. Until I’ve viewed them with my own two mortal eyes, the Ratings and Shat Levels can only be assumed or guessed at…neither of which I will do.
For programs only available in media libraries and collections (e.g. The Paley Center or the UCLA Film & Television Archive), I will make all reasonable efforts to visit and view the programs there. Basically, the goal is to be as absolutely complete as humanly possible. Why? See the Why? page of this site for a bit more detail on the origins of my neuroses.
In addition, I’ve created my own database that houses each entry, and includes airdates, premiere dates, co-stars, crew, etc. where available. This database is culled from multiple sources and doesn’t rely only on IMDB.com…which I quickly learned is not always complete and/or accurate. As each program is reviewed, the entry will have a “Shatner’s Web” section at the end to detail all of the connections to future or past appearances, and notable observations on individuals involved in the production. So the second purpose of the site is to illuminate the connections between various Shatner productions, and provide perspective on how everything ties together. In a nutshell, I hope to fully expose the Lattice of Coincidence as it relates to William F. Shatner (Shatner’s middle name might actually be Alan, or Aaron, or nothing, but I will always refer to him as William F. Shatner…you can guess what the “F” stands for. It stands for Fucking.)
Also in each review blog post will be two ratings: The Shat Level and the Star Rating. The Star Rating is the usual, subjective rating that I will give to the production as a whole, from 1 to 5 stars, with 5 stars being the best.
The Star Ratings are:
1 Star = Bad
2 Stars = Not great, Bob!
3 Stars = OK
4 Stars = Pretty good!
5 Stars = Awesome
The Shat Level, on the other hand, is a completely objective rating that focuses solely on Shatner’s performance, with his acting and amount of screen time being the two largest components of that rating. So, if Shatner is in the program for most of the time but his performance is fairly nondescript, the Shat Level might take a bit of a hit. However, if he is only in the program for a brief amount of screen time but his performance is off the charts awesome, the Shat Level may still be high. It is all based on my patented and very secret formula, but should always be trusted and never questioned.
The Shat Levels are:
1 = Shit
2 = Mildly Shatisfying
3 = Solid Shat
4 = Shat-tastic!
5 = Indispensable Shat
I would suggest starting at the beginning with The Butler’s Night Off and then moving forward through the months and years from there. I will have a summary post at the end of each year (starting with 1950) that sum up my thoughts on any and all appearances, picking my favorites and least favorites, and generally commenting on other notable happenings in Shatner’s life and world at the time. As more and more appearances are reviewed, you will be able to jump around (via links provided in the “Shatner’s Web” section of the review) to other programs with the same co-stars, crew, etc.
