Captain’s log: Stardate 1966

Maybe it’s been operating in a parallel universe, but “Star Trek” turns 40 today. For those of us who were raised with Mr. Spock and Capt. James T. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise, it seems we’ve been caught in a time warp.

The TV Land network will celebrate that noble passage tonight, with four of the show’s most popular episodes airing from 8 p.m. to midnight.

Then the fabled series (which lasted only three years on network television) will join TV Land’s regular lineup on Nov. 17.

Time hasn’t stood still – though to talk with William Shatner, who played Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who was the stoic Mr. Spock, you’d think it has.

It took Nimoy 15 years to find Spock and the show that was to make him famous. He worked in serials and small films while he was studying acting, then did a stint in the Army. When he returned he landed parts on “Wagon Train,” “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Perry Mason.”

In 1965 he was cast in the pilot for a new science fiction show written by visionary Gene Roddenberry.

“I remember what Gene told me when I met with him,” Nimoy says, seated next to Shatner in a Beverly Hills hotel room. “He said the character is going to be a character with an internal conflict because he is half-Vulcan, half-human. He wants to live as a Vulcan. His human side is something he has to contend with constantly.

“And I was excited about that because I thought it would give the character an inner life, something to work with.”

Shatner, who was born in Canada, started his career on the Canadian Broadcasting Co. as a kid. After he moved to New York, he co-starred on programs like “Playhouse 90,” “Studio One” and “The Twilight Zone.”

He was 34 when he read for the role of Capt. Kirk. The pilot had been screened a year earlier with another actor playing the captain, but didn’t sell. A second pilot, with Shatner as the resolute captain and Nimoy as his second-in-command, was created.

Shatner doesn’t remember exactly how Kirk was described in the script, but says: “He was the typical leading man. And the books (about) Capt. Horatio Hornblower by C. S. Forester were the basis of the hero. So I read several of those.”

The series was notably progressive for the 1960s.

“There was the first interracial kiss,” Nimoy says. “There were stories about overpopulation. There were stories about global warming, stories about planet conservation, stories about ethnic wars, all the things that we’re still dealing with.”

When the show eventually was canceled because of mediocre ratings, legions of die-hard fans rose up in protest.

“I thought we would see a couple years of reruns and then fade away. I really did,” Nimoy says.

“Then after two or three years, when the series went into syndication and stations around the country would schedule according to their own local audience and find out where this show might work, they began to discover there was a very interested audience waiting for the show,” he says.

“Then suddenly it became a news story, and ‘Star Trek’ was being run every night at 6 o’clock and the family dinner hour was being disrupted. When we were stopped at the airport, people would say, ‘My family won’t sit down to dinner because “Star Trek” is on.’ “

The groundswell kept growing, with every conceivable spin-off from mechanical toys to new TV series to multimillion-dollar feature films. There’s talk of a new movie, to be directed by “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams.

“The story that I’ve heard bandied about is an idea that’s been floating around for some time,” Nimoy says. “The idea of going back to academy days, where Spock and Kirk first meet.”

Nimoy says his agency received a courtesy call from Paramount Pictures indicating that the studio is going forward with a new film, but he doesn’t know if he or Shatner will be involved in the project.

“If they call us and say, ‘We’d like to talk to you about an involvement,’ I certainly would listen,” he says.

Whatever happens next, neither Nimoy nor Shatner, both now 75, has any regrets about playing such icons.

“The fact is, that from the moment that ‘Star Trek’ went on the air in September 1966 to this very day, I’ve never had to worry about where my next job is coming from,” says Nimoy.

“So since September ‘66 I’ve had no problem. So for me to complain about the impact that Spock has had on my life would be insane.”