The first season of Star Trek: Discovery threw up quite a few unexpected surprises for fans, least of all the question of just what the hell was up with the look of the Klingons?
After a very long time with The Next Generation‘s Klingons, which saw only a partial evolution when J.J. Abrams introduced to them in his films, Discovery threw us all for a loop with somewhat blue-skinned creatures with a curiously bio-mechanoid style of armor. That design was eventually revealed as harking back to The Original Series‘ pre-production designs for the species, with the explanation that the Klingons’ thirst for war and desire to be perfect warriors led them to genetically alter themselves in various ways, neatly explaining why they’ve varied so much in appearance over the years. And, as a result of this, we can apparently expect further twists on the Klingon look in season 2 of Discovery.
The news comes courtesy of makeup designer Glenn Hetrick, who was speaking at a panel at the Star Trek Las Vegas convention when he revealed that we’ll see a “completely new” Klingon design in the upcoming run. According to him, the season 1 Klingons were only one out of 26 Klingon Houses, and there are far more of them to come.
He also tickled diehard Trek fans’ thirst for continuity by explaining that the season 1 hairless look was directly inspired by the Rightful Heir episode of TNG, in which we heard the story of how a Klingon warrior cut his hair and threw it in a volcano to forge the first bat’leth.
Hetrick explained that the Discovery team was “obsessed with that story. And as we unpack it, we’re going to find tons of other reasons for the Klingon look. I think people are going to freak out when this unfurls in front of them.” I don’t know about you, but to me this sounds extremely cool – or, to put it in Klingon: pagh loS jIH – and I can’t wait to see what else Star Trek: Discovery has in store for us. Aside from Captain Pike and Spock, of course.