{"id":11509,"date":"2020-07-20T22:53:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T02:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=11509"},"modified":"2020-07-20T22:53:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T02:53:07","slug":"shatnerkhan-ii-pastrami-in-the-time-of-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/20\/shatnerkhan-ii-pastrami-in-the-time-of-plague\/","title":{"rendered":"ShatnerKhan II \u2013 Pastrami in the Time of Plague"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several weeks ago, and in a mysterious half-mythical locale like Middle Earth or Camelot, but with better Wi-Fi, I attended the second annual ShatnerKhan.\u00a0 As was specified in my contract, there was New York pastrami and other deli selections to make bearable the task of viewing an intense selection of Shatneriana.\u00a0 Up front I will state it was barely sufficient to cushion my system from the brutal shocks of what was to come.<\/p>\n

After the rigors of ShatnerKhan I, I had assumed that the membership would have retreated from the danger zone of forbidden Shatner and played it safe with an agenda restricted to Star Trek and Twilight Zone standards.\u00a0 That was not the case.\u00a0 Like the fictional Gamesters of Triskelion these risk takers wouldn\u2019t settle for trifles like quatloos or CBS science fiction episodes.\u00a0 They were hunting for big game.\u00a0 And they started it off by firing with both barrels.<\/p>\n

In my youth I remember seeing a commercial that featured a young-looking William Shatner dressed up as Alexander the Great.\u00a0 Even as a child I knew there was something wrong with that picture.\u00a0 Luckily, I was spared finding out how wrong it was until ShatnerKhan II.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember if this was a CBS or NBC made for tv movie.\u00a0 Whatever it was I can tell you it was awful.\u00a0 It was as if the producers were looking for the perfect formula to guarantee that this project would crash and burn like nothing before or since.\u00a0 Think of it, they teamed up Bill Shatner and Adam \u201cBatman\u201d West and put them in dresses, really embarrassingly short dresses.<\/a>\u00a0 Then they had them riding around on horses and generally pretending to fight a war.\u00a0 They threw in John Cassavetes and Joseph Cotten just to try to butch it up a little but after twenty minutes I begged for mercy.\u00a0 It was just too horrendously bad.\u00a0 I asked for some kind of change of pace just to help me shrug off the effects of that nightmare.\u00a0 I was allowed to choose \u201cThe Doomsday Machine<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here my feet were back under me.\u00a0 I had just reviewed the show recently and felt like I was back in the company of an old friend.\u00a0 I could hum along to the danger theme of that episode.<\/p>\n

Dahdunt, dahdunt, dehdunt, dehdunt<\/p>\n

Dahdunt, dahdunt, dehdunt, dehdunt<\/p>\n

Dahdunt, dahdunt, dehdunt, dehdunt<\/p>\n

Dahdunt, dahdunt, dehdunt, dehdunt<\/p>\n

Dehduntduntdunt, dehduntduntdunt<\/p>\n

Duhdeduhdeduhduhdehhhhh!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was the Bill Shatner I was comfortable making fun of.\u00a0 There was Bill Shatner wearing pants.\u00a0 Sure, he might take his shirt off once in a while or have it ripped off of him in a fight but he was consistently dressed like a man.\u00a0 With everything back to normal I declared a break and we broke out the vanilla ice cream, Mounds Bars and salted cashews.\u00a0 This provided just the right amount of sugar shock for us to actually discuss what we had watched without really caring what we were talking about.\u00a0 It was a great success.<\/p>\n

With the last of the cocoanut and chocolate washed down with cr\u00e8me soda I thought I was ready for whatever would be next.\u00a0 After all, having survived Alexander the Great I didn\u2019t think there was anything left in Shatner\u2019s resume to worry about.\u00a0 Boy, was I wrong.<\/p>\n

Shatner is known for talk-sing covering songs by other singers.\u00a0 But I had never heard him in a duet.\u00a0 I wish I could still say that.\u00a0 I was bombarded by something so pathetic that I can\u2019t even describe it.\u00a0 Words fail me.\u00a0 You\u2019ll have to judge for yourself.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=J648lr8cjuw<\/a><\/p>\n

It was like some kind of Lovecraftian horror that leaves you gibbering and disoriented.\u00a0 I just sat there and let the rest of the group steer the choice of videos without me.\u00a0 I think we watched Amok Time<\/a> but I\u2019m really not sure.\u00a0 It was all hazy.\u00a0 I was like some kind of disaster survivor sleep walking through the wreckage of my mind.<\/p>\n

When I finally started to come around, I was sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and a slab of ice cream cake.\u00a0 The world started to come back into focus.\u00a0 When the discussion returned to Shatner, I noticed that there was no mention of what we had witnessed.\u00a0 I could tell that none of us wanted to acknowledge that we had allowed ShatnerKhan II to overstep the bounds of sanity and even break the bonds of normal space-time.\u00a0 We had let it get away from us and we all knew we had been lucky that we hadn\u2019t summoned up some horrible presence from \u201cout there.\u201d\u00a0 Sitting here in the safety of my living room I can contemplate something like that but what if it had happened?\u00a0 What if a fat Korean guy in a bowl haircut and ancient Bill Shatner sweating and talking into his wireless microphone had broken through the space time continuum and suddenly appeared before us singing, \u201cA Total Eclipse of the Heart.\u201d\u00a0 Very probably the whole multiverse would have exploded forming a big bang across all the universes there are.\u00a0 I can\u2019t be responsible for that.\u00a0 I can\u2019t let that happen, not on my watch!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to need a kill switch for ShatnerKhan III.\u00a0 That\u2019s the only way it\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0 And I\u2019m going to need a lot of corned beef and mustard too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several weeks ago, and in a mysterious half-mythical locale like Middle Earth or Camelot, but with better Wi-Fi, I attended the second annual ShatnerKhan.\u00a0 As<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,2149,240],"tags":[1891,837,2167],"class_list":["post-11509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-shatnerkhan","tag-william-shatner","tag-william-shatner-a-demigod-of-bad-acting"],"yoast_head":"\nShatnerKhan II \u2013 Pastrami in the Time of Plague - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/20\/shatnerkhan-ii-pastrami-in-the-time-of-plague\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ShatnerKhan II \u2013 Pastrami in the Time of Plague - 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