Star Trek fight: Shatner blocks Isaacs on Twitter after comments

William Shatner has set his Twitter shields to maximum.

The actor who played the most iconic Star Trek captain has blocked the newest actor to play a Star Trek captain — Jason Isaacs on Star Trek: Discovery — on the social network following the latter’s comments in an interview.

Shatner hasn’t publicly stated a reason for the blocking. But it follows a UK tabloid story posted a couple of weeks ago headlined, “Jason Isaacs hopes William Shatner won’t appear in Star Trek: Discovery.” Which admittedly does sound pretty bad. But Isaacs didn’t say that — or at least didn’t seem to mean that — but rather was making a point about how it wouldn’t make sense to have Shatner in the series since his character would only be about 16 years old during the Discovery time period.

“Kirk doesn’t come along for 10 years and when we meet him, he’s 26, so it would be a weird timeline if [Issacs’ character met Kirk],” Isaacs reportedly said. “Someone asked which cast members from the existing series would you like to guest star. I think people watch good drama shows and they completely suspend their disbelief, they feel like they’re looking through the keyhole at another world, if you do it well enough. If you have stunt celebrity cameo casting, it completely pulls them out of it. They feel like they’re watching a Saturday Night Live sketch. So I just hope people believe our stories, are engaged with them, and I’m happy to meet Will Shatner in real life in a restaurant.”

Isaacs playfully noted the blocking on his account:

We suspect this will get sorted at some point. Isaacs has always gone out of his way to give superlative compliments to his franchise predecessor, such as in our interview where Shatner’s legacy was discussed:

Entertainment Weekly: I’ve been re-watching TOS episodes for the first time since I was a kid and one thing that really struck me is how people have this impression of William Shatner nowadays as this hammy actor and he was so great.
Jason Isaacs: He’s a genius! He elevates his dialogue and makes it epic and truthful.

Yeah, what he’s doing with really tough dialogue in those scenes, the way he knows which lines to just casually throw away and others where he just really sells it.
It’s so tough. He sells everything. People who think he’s hammy are people responding to other people doing funny impressions of him. If you watch the original he’s utterly brilliant. He was one of Canada’s top Shakespearian actors. He brings that level of commitment and epic high stakes to what could have been ridiculous dialogue. He and [Leonard] Nimoy together were a genius double. Anyone who thinks they’re hammy should try to do it themselves. I’m trying to do it now and, I’m telling you, it’s not easy.

Shatner has previously blocked people on Twitter and cited reasons ranging from having “shipper troll agendas,” a “victim mentality,” a “weird breakdown” and “just because.”

Star Trek: Discovery returns Sunday, Jan, 7 on CBS All Access.