Is Captain Kirk the New Dr. Who or James Bond?

Hey, Chris Pine, here's some advice. Don't get too comfortable in that spiffy Starfleet uniform. If movie and television history is a reliable guide, in a few years, you may be out of a job as Captain Kirk.

For those not geekily following every leaked whisper or nerdy detail of the new Star Trek film currently in production from director J.J. Abrams, Chris Pine is the young actor who's been cast to fill some pretty big sci-fi shoes. After a long casting search, Pine won the role over many a hopeful including much speculation about big Hollywood acting guns like Matt Damon or Ryan Gosling assuming command of noble Starship Enterprise.

Leonard Nimoy, who played ever logical Vulcan Mr. Spock in Gene Roddenberry's original TV series, is participating in the so called franchise reboot, but his dramatic colleague won't be along for the ride. The first Capt. Kirk, William Shatner, now Emmy award winning co-star of David E. Kelley's Boston Legal with James Spader hasn't been thrilled with this turn of events. Calling studio Paramount and Abram's decision not to include him as "bad business sense", Shatner complains about the film "going in another direction without one of its founding members."

Shatner has reason to bitch about being left out. After all isn't there only one Captain Kirk? Only one Superman? One Batman? One Dr. Who? One Bond? James Bond?

Remember, even George Clooney was Batman for five minutes and he's still chuckling over it and apologizing to us. That's why the aforementioned Mr. Pine can't get too comfy. Iconic characters are one thing, iconic actors are another. Sometimes the two meet, but it doesn't always follow that one begets the other.

Hey, I love William Shatner just as much as the next sci-fi fanboy. I loved him as James T. Kirk, loved him as the crazed dude on the doomed airplane or as the crazed dude in the diner with the devil fortune telling machine in Rod Serling's incomparable Twilight Zone. Entertainment history illustrates however, that no matter how good an actor is, they're never irreplaceable.

Sci-fi fans will tell you the British's most popular science fiction saga, Dr. Who has seen more Who's, well then Whoville - ten so far. Writer Ian Fleming's James Bond started as a series of popular novels, but Bond is now a true cinema legend. Sean Connery started the ball rolling, but Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig brought Bond boldly into a new millennium.

It remains to be seen if the upcoming Star Trek film starring Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto of NBC's Heroes fame as Spock will truly launch Star Trek back to popular heights, but this is clear. Characters were meant to be enjoyed, portrayed and reinterpreted by many generations. William Shatner should take more than a small amount of comfort in the quite natural revolving door nature of portraying characters. Because if there's a Kirk after Pine, he was the first and arguably will always be the "best."