11 Amazing Times Actors Played Other Actors Playing Characters
5. Star Trek: The Original Series
The Players: William Shatner playing Sandra Smith playing Janice Lester playing James Tiberius Kirk
Mode Of Body Swap: Life-Energy Transfer Device
Get this. The last new episode of Star Trek: The Original Series ever to air on television was a body-swap ‘sode. And on top of it being kind of an anticlimactic de-facto series finale, this episode is quite the can of worms.
Kirk & Co. beam down to Camus II, where his old flame, Janice Lester, is dying from radiation poisoning. Their relationship ended badly because Lester resented Kirk for getting promoted to captain.
A position she could never ascend to because Starfleet does not allow women to captain starships. Um… what? The show about humans evolving into basically a utopian society that featured television’s first interracial kiss and a Russian crewmember at the height of the Cold War, in its FINAL episode, casually drops that girls can’t be captain. You know what? Maybe it was time for it to get cancelled.
But back to the body-swap. Lester uses a Plot Device, sorry, Life-Energy Transfer Device found in the archeological ruins of the planet to switch bodies with Kirk. What ensues is 40 minutes of William Shatner basically going “Women be like... [insert unhinged behavior].”
If you can get past how problematic it is, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and hilarious performance. Shatner at his damn Kirkiest, as evidenced by the gif above which is a direct pull from the episode.