In what could have been a solid B-plot on Boston Legal — you were great, Boston Legal — allow us to present you with the curious case of William Shatner versus former Bachelor turned Dancing With the Stars contestant Nick Viall. The two have been engaged in a mostly one-sided war of words on Twitter over the past few days, with Shatner frequently imploring his 2-million-plus followers to do everything in their power to vote Viall off Dancing With the Stars. While we’re not exactly sure where Shatner’s animosity stems from, we’re guessing it has to do with Nick’s not-so-sterling reputation with the ladies in the Bachelor universe. But alas! Shatner seemingly called a truce this afternoon, explaining his rationale in a tweet: “As a Dad w/ daughters I’m not happy w/ what you’ve done in the past. Maybe you’ve matured now?†With this short-lived feud in the past, let’s revisit what exactly went down.
When Dancing With the Stars’ new season premiered on Tuesday, Shatner was quick to live-tweet his general disdain for Viall. (A small sampling of the tweets are below. There are a lot.)
To reach a bigger audience, Shatner then tried to get #DontVote4Nick trending the next day.
Dancing With the Stars host Tom Bergeron even got himself involved, urging Shatner to take it down a notch. He reluctantly agreed.
Throughout this whole ordeal, Viall only opined with one simple, sad emoji. Maybe he’s a Boston Legal fan and this made him sad.
Either way, the publicists over at Dancing With the Stars must be pretty psyched by this, huh?