Star Trek‘s William Shatner has been tapped to host the 2012 Juno Awards.

The Juno Awards are chosen by the members of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and presented to Canadian musical artists and/or bands for musical or technical achievement.

This year’s ceremony will be held on April 1 at Ottawa’s Scotiabank place, and will be aired on CTV. Performers will include Feist, Deadmau5 and City & Colour.

The show, two hours in length, will “take audiences on a voyager through Shatner’s life and career,” from his earliest days as a stage actor to “internationally known icon and raconteur.”

“I’m looking forward to taking this show on the road and playing for audiences across the country,” said Shatner. “It’s taken me eighty years to get this show right!”

The show opens at Broadway’s Music Box Theater on February 4 and runs through March 4. It will then appear in the following cities:

• Los Angeles. Pantages Theater. March 10.
• San Francisco. Orpheum Theater. March 11.
• Philadelphia. Merriam Theater. March 13.
• Minneapolis. Orpheum Theater. March 15.
• Chicago. Auditorium Theater. March 16.
• Milwaukee. Riverside Theater. March 18.
• Denver. Temple Hoyne Buell Theater. March 20.
• Dallas. Majestic Theater. March 22.
• Houston. Jones Hall. March 23.
• St. Louis. Peabody Opera House. April 12.
• Cincinnati. Proctor and Gamble Hall. April 13.
• Cleveland. State Theater. April 14.
• Columbus, Ohio. Ohio Theater. April 15.
• Charlotte, N.C. Blumenthal Center. April 17.
• Detroit. Opera House. April 19.

After fourteen years as the Priceline Negotiator, William Shatner‘s character is going to perish in a heroic fashion.

A new thirty-second commercial will show the Negotiator saving vacationers from a bus that is about to go over the railing of a bridge.

“Save yourselves – some money,” he implores, giving his cellphone to one of the passengers to make that call to Priceline. The Negotiator and the bus then fall into a dry creek bed, and an explosion marks the end of the Negotiator.

“I’m in grief mode,” said Shatner. “”It’s not the first time I’ve had an iconic character die off.”

It’s also not the first time his character fell off of a bridge to his death.

The death of the Negotiator is part of the strategy to get the attention of TV viewers watching the Priceline ads. “The challenge is harder to get people’s attention than it used to be,” said Christopher Soder, Priceline CEO. “So we decided to do something really over the top to get the message across.

Priceline is changing their business model, moving from a “name-your-price” model to a fixed-price one. “Had [Shatner] been less effective [at promoting the 'name-your-price' model], he could have been allowed to fade away,” said Peter Sealey of Claremont Graduate University’s School of Management. “I don’t know if I would have gone as far as the bus exploding.”

“It was a great run,” said Shatner. But “if the management says ‘this is the end,’ this is the end.”

Shatner is still under contract with Priceline.

The one-man show is called Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It and it will run for several weeks at the Music Box Theater in February.

Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It is based on years of Q&As done by Shatner for his various books including Star Trek Memories, Up Till Now: The Autobiography, Get a Life! and Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large.

Room for Shatner’s performance opened up courtesy of an early closing of Private Lives, starring another Star Trek veteran, Kim Cattrall (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). Private Lives was a casualty of slow ticket sales.

After the Broadway run, Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It will begin a fifteen-week national tour.

After the recent online exchange between Star Trek‘s William Shatner and Star Wars‘ Carrie Fisher, Takei decided to jump in with his own opinion on the fandom war, with a three minute video, George Takei is the Broker of Star Peace.

“No More Hope,” begins the video. “William Shatner went where no man had gone before, risking a civil war that pitted two fan worlds against each other.”

The video shows what happened when Shatner called Star Wars “derivative of Star Trek.” Fisher fired back, claiming that Star Trek wasn’t even in “the same league” as Star Wars.

“Fellow Star folks,” said Takei. “Cool it down! And shut your big wormholes. Each is wonderful in its own special way.”

Takei goes on to encourage both sides to aim at a more worthy target, Twilight. “It is really, really bad,” said Takei. “Gone is any sense of heroism, camaraderie or epic battles. In its place, we have vampires that sparkle, and moan and go to high school…

“But sci-fi fans, be warned. There are no great stories, characters, or profound life lessons to be had in Twilight. Noooo…in Twilight, the only message that rings through loud and clear, is ‘does my boyfriend like me?’ Let us band together to combat this mutual threat.”

While TrekToday certainly doesn’t encourage fandom wars, it’s hard to approve of a series where vampires, instead of bursting into flames when exposed to the sun as they’re supposed to do, sparkle instead. DIAMONDS sparkle. Vampires blaze.

http://youtu.be/mvTCr5Z-0lA

Del Toro and Abrams are still trying to work out a deal to get Del Toro for the Trek sequel. “Well, we’re just in negotiations,” said Abrams. “We’re in discussions. It’s not even negotiations—just in discussion. But I would love to work with him. I’ve wanted to work with him for years, and this felt like a good opportunity.”

Not unexpectedly, Abrams wouldn’t talk about what role Del Toro might take in Star Trek 2. “It’s too early to talk about what the role is,” Abrams said, “but he’s such an amazing actor. He’s so versatile. He could do anything.”

In other Star Trek 2 news, Chris Pine spoke about the possibility of a William Shatner return. “It just isn’t, quite honestly, my decision to make,” he said. “I think Mr. Shatner will forever be Captain Kirk. I think it would be, certainly, an interesting thing to bring him back. I don’t know if he necessarily wants to at this point or not. But it’s not my decision.”

Shatner has used a turkey fryer himself in the past. “I love to fry turkey and have been doing it for years but I am not immune to frying accidents,” he said.

The actor is well-qualified to speak to the public regarding turkey fryer accidents, having been the victim of one himself. “In fact, my family now gathers together to watch my mishaps,” Shatner said. “Several years ago I was even burned on my arms after accidently dropping the turkey in the hot oil. People need to remember that hot oil and turkey can be a dangerous combination.”

The video dramatizes Shatner’s own deep-fryer experience. Tips are given at the end of the video regarding how to properly use a turkey fryer, which include a caution about using too much oil, when to turn off the turkey fryer flame, where to fry the turkey (away from the house and not on a wooden deck), turkey preparation prior to deep frying and keeping a grease-fire-approved extinguisher nearby when using the deep fryer.

http://youtu.be/EYkRF_FmD40

Although fans can’t yet rent The Captains on DVD through Netflix, they can stream it if they subscribe to that service.

In The Captains, William Shatner interviewed the other actors who have played Star Trek captains on various Star Trek televised shows.

For those wanting their own copy of The Captains, the DVD was released on October 18th and is available through Amazon and other retailers.

When doing  his show in Australia, Shatner realized that he was getting something emotionally from the show. “I’m doing it because I did it in Australia and I was moved at times to tears in telling people about things I was doing, that I have done, lessons I was able to learn — to cull, if you will,” he said.

“The interaction between me and the audience provided such an enormous experience I thought I would try and repeat that,” said Shatner. “I did five cities in Australia and New Zealand; I would try and repeat that in Canada.

“I revamped the show from lessons I learned, how the audience was reacting, and my hope is to repeat that experience, in this case, in Edmonton.

“I’m having that moment actors talk about when acting in a role. It would be no different than coming to the Shaw Conference Centre in a play. But this is a play that has a beginning, middle and end, it just happens to be my life.”

More relaxed these days when it comes to performing, Shatner’s insecurity is never far away though. “…you’re filled with trepidation all the time,” he said. “Even right now, as you speak to me, a shaft went through me. ‘Can I do this, Edmonton? Will I be good enough?’ No. You don’t know. You can only hope, based on previous experience. It went well the other day; I guess it might go well today.”

Shatner learned how to relax a bit when he began to do comedy. “..I started doing comedy, and somehow people think of you differently if you’re able to get a laugh,” he said. “Suddenly you’re a funny guy and you’re not so serious. Whereas I always thought I was getting laughs. I was always the funny guy on the set and think if I was making the serious role more amusing, I would do that.

“As for making fun of myself, it’s all in fun, I think. Although, maybe it’s not.”

How Time Flies, an Evening with William Shatner will be taking place in Edmonton on Sunday, October 23, at the Shaw Conference Centre, and in Winnepeg at the Centennial Concert Hall on Tuesday, October 25.

The Captains will air tonight on Canada’s The Movie Network, at 9 PM ET, and on Movie Central at 8 PM PT.

The Captains is a “documentary that explores the life and remarkable career of William Shatner, the Canadian-born actor who took the character of Captain James T. Kirk into a new level of universal popularity. The film will explore the impact the role had on his life, why the character has become such an integral part of our pop culture, and how the role has affected other actors who have taken on the mantle of Starship Captain.