On a day of somber news that journalist Daniel Pearl had been murdered by his kidnappers in Pakistan, William Shatner reflected on grief, death and coping with tragedy on CNN's Larry King Live Thursday.

"To take a moment and [speak] my heart, our hearts go out to all those people who are grieving Danny Pearl," Shatner said on behalf of his family, in an appearance that was delayed while host Larry King spent the first segment of the show dealing with the breaking news.

King started by asking Shatner about the loss of his wife Nerine, who died in an alcohol-related drowning accident in 1999. "Grief is as palpable as pneumonia, as a disease," the actor said. "It's a terrible, terrible pain. But the pain eventually subsides."

He explained how his relationship with his current wife, Elizabeth, came about. "She understood my grief because she had nursed her husband in cancer for a year and a half, who died about two years before Nerine died. So the two of us have so much in common... We have grief and the loss of a spouse in our background, which only leads us to build a more fertile, stronger relationship because of our knowledge of loves that have passed."

Echoing some of the comments he made in his "Mind Meld" conversation with Leonard Nimoy (see related story here), Shatner told King, "I'm consumed, maybe, with the idea of death, the fear and the mystery of it. Much of the work I'm doing now involves the mystery of death, but I'm trying to do it from a comedic point of view. So laughter and grief are two sides of the same coin."

Commenting on his experience watching the events of September 11 unfold on television, describing them as "special effects shots" that seemed "too cliched to be real" and a "tragedy beyond speaking," Shatner added, "We're all terminal. Whether you live past this moment...or you die in 50 years, it really is just a moment. Which brings us to the idea that living with the concept that death is around the corner for every one of us should lead us to more sympathy and empathy between people."

King asked him how he explains the phenomenon of Star Trek to himself. "I don't know. I've given up," the man behind Captain Kirk replied. "I give a different explanation every time I am asked that question. It has something to do with the formula and it has something to do with the storytelling device and the characters involved. And everybody watches it for a different reason."

"There was science fiction, there was adventure, there was philosophy," he continued. "There were the family of characters that they fell in love with. And yet, cancel that family and bring in another family of characters and you've got another hit series called Star Trek, so I don't know."

King further asked, "What if someone brought a great, great Star Trek script to you?"

"I would jump on it in a minute! Absolutely!" Shatner responded.

A transcript of Shatner's interview with Larry King can be found at the related link below. Shatner also appeared Friday on Entertainment Tonight talking about many of the same subjects, namely his relationship with Elizabeth and with his daughter Lisabeth, his newly revamped website, and his various movie projects coming up — including "Showtime," in which Shatner plays himself teaching Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro how to be TV cops (per his TJ Hooker experience). An interview with ET Online can also be found at the related link below.