Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Director Explains Why They Changed the Klingons' Look (Again)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has changed the look of the Klingons yet again, and there's a reason for it. When Star Trek: Discovery debuted in 2017, its Kligons -- with their more ornate ridges and much heavier prosthetics -- immediately proved divisive among fans. Some objected purely because they looked different than previous iterations of the Klingons, but a more practical concern was how the additional prosthetics affected actors' ability to perform through them. In Star Trek: Picard, Worf looked like Worf, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stripped back its Klingons to something more akin to Star Trek: The Next Generation's design. Chris Fisher, who directed the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 premiere episode "The Broken Circle," explained on The 7th Rule podcast that actor performances inspired the redesign.

"I'd say one of the big challenges of this episode for me as a director was reintroducing Klingons because whereas, yes, I personally love the look of the Klingons in Discovery, that look wasn't going to work for us," he said. "Because we're a character-driven show, we need Klingons who can actually emote emotion and not have so much prosthetics and visual effects. So we really kind of moved the Klingons from a creature into a character and that was sort of our thing."

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Klingons Will Return

During the podcast, Fisher teased that the Klingons appear throughout Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2. "I still think you'll see for this season, for the Klingons, that we come back to it in different ways trying to maybe even tone them down a little bit more," Fisher said.

Klingons toned down more? Could Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, bring back original-style ridgeless Klingons? In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's time-travel episode "Trials and Tribble-ations," which dropped members of the Deep Space 9 crew into the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," Worf refused to talk about the aliens his fellow Starfleet officers from the 24th century were surprised to learn were Klingons. Star Trek: Enterprise later explained the differing Klingon looks. Could Star Trek: Strange New Worlds revisit that story? Fans will have to keep watching to find out.

How to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 debuts new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+ in the United States, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The second season will stream on Paramount+ in South Korea, with a premiere date still to be announced. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airs on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 is also streaming on Paramount+. The season is also available as home media on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4k UHD.