As one might expect, Shatner is often asked which of the seventy-nine
"Star Trek" episodes is his favorite. Usually he says that he best
likes the ones in which he played dual roles because of the acting
challenges involved. But that's not the real answer.
Shatner's true favorite is "The Devil in the Dark", the story of a
silicon-based life-form, called a "horta", that terrorizes a mining
planet, killing workers who inadvertently distroy the horta's eggs.
Shatner favors this one for personal reasons.
On the second day of shooting, he received a shocking telephone call:
his father had just died unexpectedly in Miami. Shatner tried to get
a flight out, be he couldn't get a reservation until six o'clock. The
director offered to call off the shooting, but Shatner decided to
work through the afternoon.
"And even though I really can't remember most of the day's details
anymore, the one thing that I'll never forget is the closeness that
my friend Leonard had toward me", Shatner recalls. "Not just
emotionally, but physically as well. I mean, I've seen film of
elephants that support the sick and the dying with their bodies, and
Leonard somehow always seemed physically close to me." The two men
remain close to this day. "He and I are brothers, in flesh and
spirit", Shatner maintains.