William Shatner returns in Priceline ad

William Shatner's Priceline Negotiator isn't a goner, after all. He just went surfing.

Seven months after a commercial showed the Negotiator plunging off a cliff and into apparent oblivion, the company is resurrecting him in a new 30-second TV and online spot that debuts Thursday.

A clever parody of a world-weary spy who vanishes to start anew, the online travel company's commercial opens with Shatner gazing at waves from the beach. A company man, actor Allan Louis, approaches him.

"You've been busy for a dead man," he tells Shatner. "After you jumped ship in Bangkok, I thought I'd lost you."

"Surfing is my life now," replies Shatner, 81, who is formally dressed in a suit, shirt and tie with his pants legs rolled up and a surfboard under his arm.

The Negotiator, ignoring entreaties to resume work, neatly manages a Priceline plug before dashing toward the surf.

Turns out Priceline just couldn't do without him. "We had such a positive response to the ad where we appeared to throw him over a cliff that we wanted to . . . bring him back," said Brett Keller, Priceline's chief marketing officer.The new ad from the Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners agency doesn't address how the Negotiator survived, but Shatner offers his preferred fantasy: "A beautiful girl gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

Whatever it took, the new ad reverses a flawed decision to throw the Negotiator under the bus, according to Shatner. He's played the pitchman for six years and has done Priceline spots for about 14 in all.

"I knew it was a mistake, absolutely," he said.

-- AP