Okay, I know this is a site devoted to the worst of the worst and all that, but every now and then I watch something that's not awful at all, but still it simply begs to be featured here for a variety of reasons. In the case of Alexander the Great, a rejected TV pilot from the '60s, there's two reasons: One, I originally intended to post this to coincide with the release of Oliver Stone's Alexander, which... yeah. Not so much. But more importantly, Alexander is played by William Shatner, you guys. If I had to estimate, I'd say the Oliver Stone movie was 5% of my motivation in reviewing this. The other 95%? All Shatner, baby.

Folks, it's time for us to face the complete reversal of a truism we've held dear for nearly forty years: William Shatner is a good actor. That's right. I said it. He totally is! If you don't believe me, will you take the word of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences? They're the ones who gave him an Emmy in 2004. For acting. In a competitive category. Yes, William Shatner won a real, valid, non-counterfeit award for being the best actor out of a group of five. What's next, the star of Booty Call winning an Oscar? Oh, yeah, right.

Shatner is currently appearing on ABC's Boston Legal, which overall is a pretty mediocre show (and it may be circling the drain as I write this), but he's showing a range that few knew he had. His character, law firm partner Denny Crane, can go from being a total buffoon, to being a whip-smart trial attorney, to doing the heartbreakingly tragic former legend stuff, sometimes all within the same scene. Obviously, I'm a big Star Trek fan, but I rarely think of Kirk while watching Denny Crane, which says a lot.

This is the role that won him his Emmy, which was well-deserved, and all the more so because Shatner has been a mainstay on TV screens since 1951. In addition to starring in hits like TJ Hooker and Rescue 911 (yes, they were hits, and I'm not listening to you, la la la), Shatner has guested on every show in existence, from the original Twilight Zone to Columbo to Mork & Mindy to Saturday Night Live to 3rd Rock from the Sun. He's appeared in a number of TV movies, some great (The Andersonville Trial), some not so great (Horror at 37,000 Feet), and befitting his status as a TV journeyman, it should come as no surprise that Shatner made his fair share of unsold pilots. One of these saw him play the unlikely role of Alexander the Great.

Shatner is no stranger to the Agony Booth (meaning this website, not the actual agony booth in that Star Trek episode, though both are true), not only appearing a couple of times in the Worst of Trek section, but also single-handedly turning the film Impulse into one of the sleaziest (and thus, greatest) camp classics ever made. (And because of this recap, William Shatner has become this website's very first Three Strikes Repeat Offender.) Impulse was Shatner a few years after the glory of Star Trek's original run; Alexander the Great, on the other, much more pleasant to contemplate hand, is Shatner a few years before the glory.

This pilot was aired only once on ABC in 1968 as part of the anthology series Off to See the Wizard, a children's program where animated Wizard of Oz characters would introduce various cartoons and live-action segments. In other words, it was an easy way for MGM to make use of assorted shorts and unsold pilots it had in its archives. So, as you can imagine, a decent copy of this is pretty hard to find. My copy is probably twenty steps removed from the original source, so the picture quality (along with the quality of the screencaps included in this recap) is pretty awful, nearly to the point of making parts of it hard to follow.

But I still wanted to draw a little attention to this obscure piece of Shatnerica. I admit, Alexander the Great on its own is pretty unremarkable. Following Alexander's historical exploits in a weekly series isn't all that bad of a premise, but this pilot is a real yawner. The script would scream "bland and clichéd" if it had enough energy to scream anything. There's really nothing in here that you haven't already seen in a thousand sword and sandal films, and overall, it's a pretty pale imitation of the 1956 film version of Alexander the Great that starred Richard Burton (wearing an even worse wig than Shatner in his TJ Hooker days), and even that movie wasn't all that great to begin with.

But this pilot is pure novelty, and not only because of Shatner's appearance. It also features John Cassevetes [!], Joseph Cotten [!!], and Adam West [!!!], all in small supporting roles. This is hardly a full-tilt camp classic, but at least it's somewhat leaning in that direction, thanks to the presence of Shatner and West and Cotten and Cassevetes all tramping around the desert in man-skirts and chest plates.

As expected, the story plays pretty fast and loose with the facts about the life of Alexander of Macedonia. And that's keeping in mind most "facts" we know about Alexander were written by historians centuries after the fact. Although there's plenty of archaeological evidence of Alexander's reign, many of the historical accounts are so embellished that's it hard to sort truth from myth.

What we do know is that Alexander was one of the most ambitious conquerors in Western history, as well as one of its craftiest military strategists. Some three hundred years before the birth of Christ, his army conquered a region from Macedonia to India, nearly the entire civilized world at the time. Alexander's army marched for eleven years, traveled over 20,000 miles, and never lost a battle. He united an area of over 22 million square miles, introduced a common language and currency to the region, and all totaled, over 70 cities are still named "Alexandria" in his honor. And he was able to do all this before dying at the age of 32, after having spent most of his life beating back—and finally destroying—the forces of King Darius of Persia.

I tried to figure out exactly which historical incident plays out in this episode, but after quickly poking through reference materials, it's obvious it never really happened. The story is a hodgepodge of facts, names, and places associated with Alexander, all tossed together haphazardly. For instance, there's at least one character who dies in this episode, despite outliving Alexander in real life. Also, names are doled out pretty much at random, as in the case of Alexander's girlfriend in this pilot, who carries the same name of a real-life queen who actually adopted Alexander. So stuff like that indicates to me that historical accuracy wasn't really on the producers' to-do list. Nor were creativity, memorable dialogue, or spending lavishly, for that matter.

But if the years-after-the-fact memory of Adam West is to be trusted, they had some other things up near the top of that list. According to the All Movie Guide, West once said the producers included "an elaborate orgy sequence, with Alexander consuming mass quantities of wine as dancing girls undulate all around him." If such a scene was ever filmed, it doesn't show up here. My hunch is that Adam West was merely misremembering, with time blowing something minor into something huge by the time he was interviewed. There is in fact one short scene with men and women celebrating and consuming wine, but it's absolutely nowhere near the drunken Dionysian carnival described by West. (And if that scene was actually filmed and included in the pilot, it was obviously cut out by ABC in order to be shown on what was essentially a kid's show.)

Thankfully, this series was never picked up. If it had somehow taken off, Shatner and West might have never gone on to Star Trek or Batman, respectively. No Star Trek, no spin-offs, no movies, no Worst of Trek section, no Enterprise. No Batman, no Wild World of Batwoman. Okay, so my examples aren't that great, but you can see where I'm coming from.

A crash of thunder starts off the opening credits, which are filled with regal trumpets playing the Alexander the Great Theme. Thundering, warped trumpets! At least that's what I've got on my fiftieth-generation dub. The camera pans across what I think is a diorama scene of soldiers fighting, but the credits are completely in the way, and the picture quality sucks.

Oh, and the credits have a cutesy little quirk about them: All of the Es are replaced with Sigmas. It looks just like the Greek alphabet! Isn't that just precious? Doesn't it make you feel like you're actually, you know, in ancient Greece? It's so precious, I'm overlooking the fact that the Epsilon and the Sigma have absolutely no relation to each other in the Greek alphabet.

As the credits roll, a loud male chorus, probably fresh off providing chants for a Viking epic, begins to bellow the lyrics to the Alexander theme. They go:

Nice. Short, simple, and to the point. I think even the opening theme to The Shield is a more complex piece of music than this.

The episode opens on the branches of a dead tree. An actor—who you can sort of tell was not classically trained—declares in voiceover, "Persia. 2,297 years ago." And the one thing you'll notice right away is that ancient Persia looked a lot like Utah. The voiceover calls it, "A land of rock!" Awesome! Did it look like the cover of Houses of the Holy? He adds, "Of sand! Of war!" Then he feels the need to add, "Of barbaric war!" Yes, no gentleman's battles in ancient Persia, it would seem.

"For this was the kingdom of Darius, king of kings! Ruler of all western Asia!" And, in keeping with the voiceover artist's training, he's pronouncing "Darius" like "Darry-us" when the accepted pronunciation is "Duh-RYE-us". Though, I can understand that accepted pronunciations change over time, so maybe this isn't a result of the filmmakers' incompetence. Maybe.

As he talks, the camera pans down that dead tree, and we see several bodies hanging by ropes from branches. A man in a standard Greek soldier outfit rides up on horseback. He's got the whole ancient ensemble going, complete with the gold helmet with the Mohawk and the solid gold mutton chops. I'd like to believe that when you go to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, an actor wearing this outfit greets you at the front door.

Ah, but the narrator isn't done yet. "For centuries, the winds of battle swept this land dry of life! Until one day from Greece, from the West, came a man to bring life to the soil! And civilization! And peace! A man who was known as..." The soldier on horseback takes a gander at the boys swinging from the tree, and he turns and cries, "Alexanderrrrrrrrrrrrr!" See how nicely that dovetails with the narration? It's so nice, I won't even criticize the notion that only someone from "the West" could bring civilization to this region.

A horse gallops into frame with a caped figure on its back. After the horse obliges us by rearing up on its hind legs and whinnying for no reason, we see the guy on his back is the Shat-Man himself as Alexander the Great. Alexander sees the three bodies and hastily rides forward, and four of his soldiers on horseback quickly follow.

Alexander rides at a breakneck pace, and yes, a wide shot reveals it is indeed William Shatner doing all the horseback riding himself in this pilot. This should come as no surprise to people familiar with his work, since the man has plainly had a lifelong love of horseback riding that seems to find its way into a number of his roles. (For instance, this is the sole reason why that whole scene between Kirk and Picard in Generations took place with them both on horseback.)

Shatner rides up to the Tree of Death (which is kind of like the Tree of Hope at the Apollo Theater, except nobody rubs this one for good luck). He orders the three corpses cut down. All the men dismount, and as his four companions hack at the ropes with swords, we finally get a good look at Shatner's Macedonian active wear here. It's a pretty standard period outfit, probably left over from whatever Spartacus rip-off had most recently finished shooting. Shatner's got the chest plate happening, and oh yes, the man-skirt happening as well. I wonder if he hung onto this outfit and wore it again for "Plato's Stepchildren".