Star Trek: Discovery: William Shatner Won't Rule out Bringing Back Kirk

With reporting by Sadie Gennis.

CBS's new Star Trek series Star Trek: Discovery, which will debut on the channel before moving over to CBS All Access exclusively in January 2017, will be introducing new characters to the long-lived (and long prospered) franchise... But fans are all dying to know if any members of the old crew will make an appearance.

And William Shatner is perhaps Star Trek's most famous face, having played Captain James T. Kirk in the original series. So will the classic captain show up on the brand new Star Trek?

While in attendance at the Television Critics Association fall previews to promote his upcoming NBC series Better Late Than Never, TVGuide.com asked Shatner if he would be open to making a cameo in Star Trek: Discovery.

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"Leonard [Nimoy, who plays Spock in the franchise], my friend, did a cameo [in the new Star Trek movies]," Shatner told TVGuide.com. "I said to him, 'You know you're old when you go back in time and you're still old.' It was a cameo, and I thought, 'That's a waste of time. He's so talented. Why didn't they do something more with him?' So that's the way I feel about that."

When pressed further, Shatner revealed he's not totally against reviving Kirk; he just wants it to have more substance than a gimmicky cameo. When asked if there was any way he'd drop by Discovery, he said he would, but only, "If I were useful."

Better Late Than Never, which follows Shatner, George Foreman, Henry Winkler and Terry Bradshaw as they trek across Asia, premieres Tuesday, Aug. 23 at 10/9c.