Creature Actor Javier Botet To Play “Old Alien” In ‘Star Trek: Discovery’; Klingon Hair Defended

(THR)

We have been reporting on the Star Trek news from our coverage of New York Comic Con all week, and there is still more to come. But, there are a few new tidbits of Star Trek TV news to catch up on today before we finish up our interviews and more from NYCC. There is some more casting news for Discovery, a Klingon hair Q&A, and some Star Trek: The Next Generation vets talking about the new Picard show. So, let’s dive into another Star Trek TV bits.

Creature actor Javier Botet to play alien in Discovery

A bit of casting news was broken by Bloody Disgusting in an interview with actor Javier Botet, best known for his work playing creatures in horror movies, including 2018’s It and the titular villain in Slender Man. Botet confirmed he will be working on a role in Discovery:

It’s going to be a very cool role, so I can’t wait to see it. I’ve been working with my friend Doug Jones, another monster performer.

Botet said he was in one episode in a guest alien role for the second season, but would only tease the part saying:

It’s an old creature but I’m not going to tell you what creature.

Javier Botet (THR)

“Old creature” could be interpreted in a number of ways. We know that we are meeting members of Saru’s family, so Botet could be playing an old alien like Saru’s father or grandfather. Or it could mean a known alien from the original Star Trek, maybe a Talosian, the telepathic aliens from the forbidden planet of Talos IV, who were teased at the NYCC panel by executive producer Alex Kurtzman. Or Botet could just be playing some old alien. One thing is for sure, Botet has a unique look and body, which is why, like Doug Jones, he is in constant demand to play all sorts of creatures and monsters.

Discovery will not be Botet’s first foray into Star Trek. Earlier this year he appeared on the Spanish comedy show Capítulo 0, in a Star Trek parody episode titled “Space Universe,” in which he also played an alien.

Javier Botet (pictured in back) in Capítulo 0 “Space Universe” Star Trek parody

Team Klingon talks hair

One of the big revelations in the new Star Trek: Discovery season two NYCC trailer and discussed at the NYCC panel, was the new look for the Klingons, specifically that they now have hair. As was teased over the summer by makeup designer Glenn Hetrick, the season one baldness for the Klingons was by their choice. It is now explained that they shave their heads in time of war. As predicted by Hetrick, this change has evoked a lot of discussion.

It has also inspired some follow-up questions and thanks to the magic of social media, some of them are being answered. Some have noted that we have seen Klingons at war in the 24th century and they didn’t all shave their heads when going up against the Dominion. This concern was covered by L’Rell actress Mary Chieffo, who showed her knowledge of Klingon history, even tying Discovery to events during the TOS movie era.

Another question has arisen related to how the designers had previously noted that the new design was born from envisioning the Klingons as apex predators with more sensory organs on their heads. Creature designer Neville Page fielded this question, pointing out that the hair doesn’t shut down these extra senses.

One beep for yes, Mount

Our last bit for Star Trek: Discovery is another fun tweet from Captain Pike actor Anson Mount. In December he will be appearing at an event at Star Trek: The Original Series Set Tour. Today Mount had a little fun with how he promoted the appearance, saying he was looking forward “to being nailed into a rolling, black box, and wheeled around for others’ enjoyment,” joking about Pike’s wheelchair-bound fate.

Picard Series: Berman thumbs up, McFadden no call

Switching to the other big Star Trek TV show that is being discussed, a couple of vets of Star Trek: The Next Generation have weighed in on the upcoming Jean-Luc Picard show in development for CBS All Access. First up, former Star Trek overlord and executive producer for TNG Rick Berman has again offered a thumbs up for the show today, taking to social media to praise how the series has “lots of first-class talent behind it.”

Last month Berman, who has never publicly discussed Star Trek: Discovery, spoke up in support of how the Picard show had Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon signed on as a writer and executive producer.

Also talking about the Picard show today was Next Generation actress Gates McFadden. Replying to a fan question about if she has received any phone calls regarding the Picard show, the Dr. Crusher actress joked about getting calls from telemarketers.

Last month TrekMovie reported that McFadden, along with her co-stars Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis, told a panel audience at Rose City Comic Con that none of them had been called about appearing in the upcoming show. Of course, with the writers’ room only up for a month, there is plenty of time for phone calls to be made and now that, as we reported, the Picard show will be an ongoing series, with multiple seasons planned, there is even more time for some of those TNG stars to be brought in.

 


Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else. The second season will debut on All Access and Space on Thursday, January 17th, 2019, and on Netflix January 18th.

The first season of Star Trek: Discovery will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 13th.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news here at TrekMovie.

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Hopefully the new Picard Show will be more new Star Trek then Old Star Trek, Introduce a new Threat to the Federation and have everyone get together to fight this threat for Survival you got to have a threat or new Fans will get Board.

Ah yes, the simple minded new threat scenario.
That’ll make all the difference in the world.
Very Yawn inspiring.

@DS9 is King — Literally everything you just said is wrong in every way. But thanks for the laugh!

What is your obsession with wanting to just see shoot outs and villains all the time for this show? How long have you been watching Star Trek? I don’t mind that stuff too but you seem to think that’s all that matters in the franchise, which is odd for a Trek fan.

If you just want big bad guys, lot of gun play and huge battles every 20 minutes there is that other ‘Star’ franchise that thrive on that stuff. Star Trek has that but that’s not the core of the franchise. It’s about the adventure and discovery into the unknown as much as its about threats and fighting the Romulans or the Dominion every season.

I doubt it since this is Star Trek for the SJW generation.

I don’t see anything SJW in the programme itself beyond what TREK has always been.

Agreed! It’s been that way since day one. In fact that’s why people celebrated the show so much. It’s weird how people try to make revisionist history over it.

Oh no the strawman argument. Good thing I’m not an SJW like you eh?

No Backpedaling! Honest!!

It’s clearly backpedaling and a reaction to the divisive nature of the blue lizards. But their explanations can still fit in with canon, so who cares? For those who like the blue lizards these are still them with hair and beards. For those that like the definitive look, the hair and beards makes them look a lot more like what we know as a Klingon. A decent compromise for both fans of the new and older looks, surely?

Blue Lizards? They were different, yes, but they weren’t lizard-like at all.

Yep, I don’t recall seeing any blue lizards anywhere.

They were pretty blue-hued, but that’s just Disco’s cinematography in general, I guess

Yeah lots of blue happening on that show lol. I can understand how people think its the people themselves though.

Personally speaking, I think it would’ve been a lot less controversial if the producers, in the beginning, simply said, “This is what the Augment virus REALLY did – it’s a retcon of what came before. There was still an Augment virus. Instead of smoothing the foreheads, they lost their hair, sort of like leukemia, but on a deeper genetic scale.” I think that would’ve gone over much better if they stuck with the makeup choices they did for S1 and S2 of STD.

But alas, they weren’t smart enough and now have to make 200+ tweets about Klingon culture and all that nonsense. Also, this way, they wouldn’t have had to have added hair to the Klingons and they could’ve kept it. It would’ve made a far less amount of fans upset rather than 99.9% of the fanbase.

Some of these creators are seriously out of touch with Star Trek…

Just a poorly thought out show. It may redeem itself with a little honesty. The visual entertainment industry has become very arrogant, unapologetic, and forceful, in recent years. These changes may be Too little, Too late. Hopefully the higher ups will learn from this.

Thanks for that precise 99% figure, no doubt calculated with the Nerdometer Mark IV.

I understand why they didn’t touch the Augment virus at all in season one.
It plain wasn’t needed.
If all Klingons had been afflicted they’d just look like humans, which would have confused the heck out of new viewers, who’d likely be turned off by some lame-sounding dialogues recapping the events of the Augment arc.
I always imagined the Klingons were able to contain the affliction somehow, but perhaps were treating the victims as outcasts until it was healed sometime between TOS and DS9 (since we have the three TOS Klingon commanders show up with ridges there).
Star Trek Online had some insane quest line involving Miral Paris and the Guardian of Forever.
I like the new explanation, shaving in time of war is simple enough to easily convey on the show. It also has an unforeseen (perhaps) bonus with General Chang in TUC: He feels like the Klingons ARE at war with the Federation and this shaves his head. :)
Personally I would have tied it in with the afflicted Klingons though. Since L’Rell will be working to unify the Empire, AND we know from TOS the smooth Klingons have a strong presence in the KDF during TOS, they could have been introduced later.
Shaving your head could have been a way for “Pure” Klingons to show off.

Chang had hair FWIW

Chang had eyebrows and a mustache. Otherwise, he was hairless.

He had a ponytail

Geez! I didn’t recognize it until today! But it is a very subtle one:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NivBZDdaNkk/TVz255ygAzI/AAAAAAAABcI/rIGLKshFPOU/s1600/generalchang.jpg

I should go and reread Shakespeare in it’s Klingon Original ;D

And a double pubic thatch. Apparently….

Your plan is to keep a look that threw out hundreds of hours of a definitive look in favour of an augment explanation when the Discovery can do no wrong crowd have continuely criticised Enterprise’s attempt to make canon work via the augment idea?

Why are fans so opposed to a compromise?

Why should they compromise with forceful and shady people?

Edit: Ignore. Misread what you said.

The Augment virus was introduced in ENT to explain the smooth-headed Klingons in TOS. If they wanted to use the Augment virus to explain the Discovery look this would require that the Augment virus first turns ENT-era Klingons into smooth-headed Klingons, then turns them into the Discovery design, then back to the smooth-headed versions in TOS (which takes place after the events of Discovery), and then they are magically cured at some point before the TOS movies (or between TMP and TSFS if you count TMP as another, separate Klingon design). Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

Yeah or maybe an attempt to counter the virus which missed the mark by a bit – something like that (even though I guess Klingons really wouldn’t mind ending up looking like vampire bats). By the way, it’s not leukaemia that makes people lose their hair, it’s chemotherapy that does that.

I’m pretty sure that fewer than dozens of fans care about this.

‘Out of touch’ is certainly one way to put it…

To some people, no matter what they did, they would have been met with crap from canonistas.

I also fail to see how making an attempt to appease canonistas equates to being “out of touch”…..

Or… They could just add the hair for S2 and NOT give a reason for it. Just do it and move on.

Yeah agreed! They didn’t try to explain why they looked so different in the first season, so its not a real need to explain it now, especially since everyone clearly knows why it was changed.

Good point on no explanation given for the Klingon appearance change in S1. Keep with that precedent and not give one when they change them again.

Saru’s Father – that was my first thought too.

Or an Iconian. ‘Old’ as in ‘ancient’.

Will be interesting to see!

He and Doug Jones have similar body types, so they do look as if they could be the same species of alien.

Personally, I’m hoping he plays a member of the predator species.

That makes sense. We are seeing Saru’s family at some point…

OK,but why Klingons had no hairs even in DSC pilot episode in time before war even started??? I mean not only on board of T’Kuvma’s ship but especially Klingons on every other ships ee could see in that episode…

Jonathan you arrived at the proof that they are back peddling

That’s true, but you and I both know this explanation from their part is “backpeddling” – and I’m actually fine with this backpeddling.

Trek has always retconned, backpeddled, contradicted numerous times ( a consequence of trying to marry together such a vast and all-encompassing franchise ).

Why not have the common sense and decency to do it properly in the first place? It’s all there on film, if they feel a little confused. I know Trek fans are good at fitting a Square peg into a round hole, but this is ridiculous. They need to stop digging and come clean about the f*ck-up.

True.

I think they took the leap ( in changing the look so drastically ) to service the Tyler Ash story ( with the heavy make-up obscuring the actor’s features to allow for the “shock” reveal.

If there wasn’t the degree of backlash against the new Klingons ( who were ultimately a bore imo ), they’d surely have continued with these new designs.

I actually wouldn’t have minded the new look IF they arc was compelling – but I found myself bored every time T’Kuvma and the others tried to emote uncomfortably through all the dentures and overly heavy make-up.

Not sure what that has to do with designing the new Klingons?

When a showrunner is pushed out that deep into the development of the series it’s up to the new showrunner and remaining producers to pull it all together and carry the season out to its conclusion. The series bible and aesthetic of Discovery all link back to Bryan Fuller and that’s what they had to work with.

You don’t have to like the creative direction of the show or the direction it has taken but to say that the show suffered in your eyes because of the race and gender of the producer’s and writing staff? Really?

It would seem that the overall message of Star Trek over five decades has been completely lost on you.

It’s not a lack of common sense or decency. There have been several changes of showrunner since the decision to make all the Klingons bald. The designer’s job is to realize and justify the producers’ vision. In Season 1, that meant to justify the bald look. They did the best job they could to do that. A significant section of the audience didn’t buy it, and the new producers decided to make a change. Now the designers’ job is to realize and justify that change. But it would be bad form to throw the previous producers under the bus, so they’ve come up with this hairy-in-peace/bald-in-war handwave. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough.

Why make problems where there doesn’t need to be any? There’s a whole lot of info on what this time looks like, Klingons, Ships, etc. Seems like a lack of common sense or change for the sake of change. I’m not sure who their target audience was supposed to be and neither were they by the look of it.

For the 40th anniversary remaster of Discovery in 2057 they will digitally reinsert hair on the Klingons and all retcons will be washed away

Who knows how Klingons will look by 2057? There might be a few more redesigns inbetween. That’s IF there will still be Star Trek, at all.

Right.

Consider Star Trek II: The Ret of Con… Chekov. Plus, blondish, aging Khan & blondish, ageless Khanites. Doesn’t fit with visuals or certain story elements of Space Seed. Yet most say, Best. Trek. Movie. Ever.

Sure, it’s possible to crap on the franchise and the fans, but it’s also possible to be smart and intentional… and to smile and wink when helpful. YMMV, but I’m fine with the return of hair and the deft retconning.

Blondish Khan?! It’s GRAY HAIR in STII, nothing even remotely blond about it. Gray hair made perfect sense for an aging Khan.

Chekov wasn’t a problem. Enterprise had 430 crew members in TOS, but we only saw a few each week. In any given episode, there were 400+ crew we didn’t see. Chekov could easily have been among the crew we didn’t see during “Space Seed.” Thus, a retcon that didn’t cause any problems, unlike all the DSC retcons (which are anything but “deft”).

Nothing like the canon-warping (and brain-insulting) changes made by the “creative” team on Discovery.

WOK did have it’s share of inconsistencies sure. But the difference between it and STD is quite simple and obvious. The Wrath of Khan was actually good while Star Trek Discovery was…. Not. I promise you had STD been better the complaints over canon issues would lessen accordingly. The better the show, the less folks would complain about canon. The worse the show, the more people will complain about canon.

ML31: On this, you are 100% correct beyond doubt:
“I promise you had STD been better the complaints over canon issues would lessen accordingly. The better the show, the less folks would complain about canon. The worse the show, the more people will complain about canon.”

Because, ultimately, it was what Bryan Fuller wanted. Once Fuller was pushed out the train had left the station as far the overall aesthetic of the series. Those remaining with the show are now tasked with making the pieces fit.

Yeah. The look of the show is mainly Fuller’s ideas. This is part of the “real life writes the plot” trope. This is what they have to work with, so now they have to try and make it fit. I still think the design of the Klingons was to hide the Tyler/Voq plot twist.

Exactly! Thats all this is really about. Fuller had a certain vision he wanted for the show, so they went along with it. But then he was pushed out so now they can change things up and make it closer to traditional canon.

They should just argue it that way because it’s the truth. And they don’t have to say its because of fans, they just decided to go a new direction with the new show runner to make the universe feel a bit more connected. I guess they have to someone how ‘prove’ this was an example of what they been saying from the beginning and it was always the plan. And Quark has a moon to sell you for only 1,000 bars of gold pressed latinum. ;D

LOL. Quark selling a moon. Ya’ can’t trust those prices!

They have to give a reason ON THE SHOW why Klingons suddenly look different from last season for the vast majority of viewers who do not follow fan websites and conventions. They have come up with a simple and (kind of) elegant solution with the shaving during war time. If they wanted to retcon why Klingons haven’t done that in previous iterations of Trek they could even do a story about different interpretations of ancient scripture since they are tying it to the legend of Kahless. You know, like different interpretations of religious texts on Earth.

No one is saying they can’t do that. That’s fine. Just stop acting like it was part of some plan. It’s basically just retconing a retcon lol. But Star Trek is infamous for retconing of course so none of it is the end of the world either.

But it’s clear Fuller only saw them as bald because that was what they were. This stuff came much later. Which again is not a big deal because I imagine lots of things got changed later anyway after Fuller. They shouldn’t have been bald in the first place.

Exactly Jonathan. Definitely back peddling going on. Either that or they are pretty bad story tellers. How do you do something so significant BEFORE you sign on for war? Makes no sense.

One of the writers stated that the 24 Klingon Houses were warring with each other (hence the need to unify them) – thus they were already at war, just not with the Federation.

Hey, they were preparing for war with the torch bearer igniting the flame as a symbol for that. And shaving could also have been a special war fashion of this time.

Exactly.

They are just clearly making this up as they go along.

As most showrunners do. Surprise.

Easy. T’Kuvma and his ilk already considered themselves at war.

They need to stop this. It does the show, the actors, the fans, and the studio a disservice to continue shoveling this hair retcon BS. They made a mistake. Fess up. Or don’t fess up. Just stop lying. I hate being lied to.

Please drop the false drama and mock outrage.

Agree. They don’t even need to ‘fess up’ but just say they went a different way if they can’t just say it was a mistake. They aren’t fooling anyway with this silly excuse.

We are just happy they are looking more like Kingons now. You already got a lot of fans on your side with this decision, it’s no need to lie about it.

While we’re at it, I demand (DEMAND!) that Rich Berman and Brent Spiner apologize to me personally for every time Data used a contraction!!!!!!

Where did he said he was looking for an apology? He’s only saying they are lying about not backpeddling. Data’s contradictions is just an actor making an honest but understandable mistake. They didn’t try to cover up it was a mistake like these guys are trying to do.

And while we are at it, the “Data is incapable of using contractions” concept is mind mindbogglingly stupid anyway.

LOL agreed. In fact I completely forgot that was even a thing. It just sounds like one of those odd quirks Roddenberry came up with early on to define Data. I’m surprised they simply didn’t ignore it later on as it added literally nothing to the character.

I think it was dreamed up as something to differentiate Data from Lore. It’s awfully weak, but then so was the concept of Data’s evil twin to begin with.

Does this make general Chang “old school” ;)

Or he is just bald like Picard…

The TNG cast gets together for dinner, and the chatter about the Picard show being a TNG reunion just won’t go away.

Oh, don’t tell me people start acting up about Klingons having hair again. Geeez. I don’t care if it’s “backpedaling” or not. I’m just happy that Klingon heads don’t look like a weird selection of Halloween candy anymore.

Fan extremists will go mental if Michael Dorn appears in the Picard show with the new design makeup and no one comments on it. ‘We never speak of it with outsiders!!’ ;)

Extremists? You need to get out more.

Well I imagine a few would scratch their heads lol. Not even about Worf, just the vast difference they would look on the new show and why they were partly changed.

I’m sure most would’ve given it a chance though if those Klingons did show up on the new show, but I can’t blame them for not wanting to risk it.

Gheez, dudes. Star Trek fans are the reason Star Trek fandom gets a bad rep. The anger over the Klingons’ look is just silly. The Klingons have changed their appearance many times already. In TOS, they changed their look from one episode to the next. They changed again in ST:TMP. They changed again in Star Trek III. They changed again in TNG, pretty much every single time they showed up–the changes from one character to the next were huge. They changed again in Star Trek V and VI. And they changed again the Abrams films. Now, they’ve changed for Discovery. In other words, there are many different versions of Klingons–which makes complete sense, as they’re an empire, not a single planet. So relax, people. You’re popping a vessel over something very minor in the bigger picture. This article lays it all out for you: https://www.herocollector.com/en-us/Article/star-trek-the-many-faces-of-the-klingon

I don’t really get angry. I might be disappointed, but I don’t get angry. Not worth it. It’s just a show. I just relax.

To the casual viewer, the Klingons looked basically the same from Search for Spock and through era of Rick Berman’s tenure. Yes, there were relatively minor changes, like when Worf’s makeup was refined (and other upgrades), but the Klingons had the same basic look over a 20-year span. One thing that emerged was individuating cranial ridges on foreheads – so there was variation among individuals – the same way there is great variety of, say, the noses of humans. This is different than a species-wide change. (Some seem confused on this point.) But over twenty plus years, there was a basic and accepted look. Then Discovery made radical changes that rendered the Klingons unrecognizable. The only previous example of a change this radical would have been the jump from the 1960s Klingons to the Motion Picture Klingons. So the argument that Klingons changed radically in 1979, so they can change radically in 2017- that is an argument you can make if you like, but most people disagree with that.

Also, while they changed the cranial ridges going from Motion Picture to Search for Spock, they kept the costuming concept, so it wasn’t that drastic of a departure.

Erm nope. The Fans are not the reason why Trek gets a bad rep.
Its just fandom. Can you imagine that a huge amounts of people just dont cares about all the “fans” and just watches the show… or even not watching the show?

They remained consistent for a good 25 years. Not sure what you’re talking about.

The Klingon look was really only changed once before STD. The changes made after the one big change were pretty minor and the Klingons still looked like Klingons. Even the KU Klingons were different but still looked like Klingons. STD made a rather large leap akin to making Vulcan skin purple and giving them oblong heads.

trek-related pun of the day: slogan for Quark’s hostesses if they double as prostitutes:
A little Dabo do you.

As cool as Picard is, he was part of an ensemble,and the new series will be a catch up to what’s going on in that time. If most of the other TNG characters aren’t in it – especially Crusher – it’s going to be really disappointing.

I dunno, I’m enough of a Patrick Stewart fan that they could build an entirely new cast around him and I’m sure I’d find it compelling

Is the script even finished yet? They won’t know who of the old cast they can fit in before they finish the script. I’m sure there have already been unofficial talks with the people they think they might need. But actors don’t go on Twitter and confirm unofficial talks.

This will not be a TNG reunion. We will not see the full cast together on the Enterprise bridge.

I disagree. Stewart was the only actor in that cast who was capable of making a mediocre show watchable. None of the characters were all that compelling (including Picard) but only he had the acting chops and charisma to make the entire show watchable. So it would be welcome to have a new and better drawn out supporting cast around him. I’m sure we will have the others pop in from time to time. But keep it at that. The show is about Picard. Not LaForge or Crusher.

Hey. That guy could play Stretch Armstrong. I used to have several of those and he has the perfect build. Sweet!

1000 quatloos says Javier is the Red Angel.

500 quatloos side bet: The Iconians are the Red Angels.

The Iconians? Not a chance. That’s far too obscure a Trek reference, and it would be lost on the majority of viewers.

I think I owe it to myself to go on that set tour and take a pic with Captain Kirk while the opportunity still exists. Better start saving cuz 😬 that’s some bread right there

Yeah I agree with pretty much everyone here, it’s definitely some back peddling going on with the hair business. They can try as they might to pretend other wise but people aren’t stupid. For pete sakes they said last year they were bald due to a mandate by Fuller. They were ALWAYS just bald. The Vulcan Hello makes no sense then if literally every Klingon showed up already bald. Did they all hear T’kumva speech and decided to shave first before showing up in hologram? Forget They even showed a flashback scene with young Voq getting his butt kicked by other young Klingons and yeah all bald there too.

I just don’t understand why they can’t admit the obvious? They simply changed the design to go a different way. If they don’t want to admit they did it because most fans hated the new Klingons, fine, then just say you decided to go a different avenue post Fuller and everyone will shrug and move on.

All that said, it doesn’t really matter of course. All that matters is they are trying to make the show fit traditional Star Trek canon and this is a GREAT start so end of the day no one really cares what excuse they come up for it, simply that they did it. But they drag this conversation out longer with this ridiculous excuse.

You claim that it doesn’t matter and that nobody really cares but it’s very obvious that part of fandom just can’t seem to accept the excuse (and in-story explanation for the change) they have come up with and are dragging this out demanding some kind of apology from the producers.

Well no one is not going to watch the show over it lol. It’s just people expressing themselves about it. You know how this works, especially if they think they are lying which seems like they are. But in a few weeks everyone will have moved on. When the show starts all that will matter is if the show is worth watching or not. But don’t treat the fans like we’re stupid either. If you don’t want to admit the obvious, fine, but acting like it was some grand plan was a mistake when the evidence says completely the opposite.

I’m all for having the Klingons have hair again – but the reasoning does seem a bit disingenuous. First, in “The Battle of the Binary Stars,” there is a brief flashback to T’Kuvma’s past as a child – and he, along with the other kids in the flashback, are all hairless. Then again, I’m sure this could be explained away as the 24 Klingon Houses were already warring, and thus Klingons were shaving their heads (including the children). Second, and this one would be a LOT more difficult to explain away, after L’Rell is captured, her hair doesn’t grow back, not even a little bit. I suppose the Disco security staff could have let her shave her head? I kinda doubt that though. And finally, and this is a bit silly, but they shave their eyebrows too? That just seems excessive.

In the end, I think the Disco writing staff recognized the backlash toward the Klingons new look and backtracked some by giving them hair again. I honestly have no problem with that – they tried something new and it didn’t really work. I’m just not a big fan of making up excuses to justify mistakes.

Maybe the cast and crew are trying to be funny with the whole “baldness during wartime” schtick? They can’t seriously think fans will believe that was the original intent…

”This concern was covered by L’Rell actress Mary Chieffo, who showed her knowledge of Klingon history”

Nope, she was completely making things up. Her claims have no basis in Trek canon – or even real-life world history. For example, this…

“The Dominion War takes place more than 100 years after the events of Discovery. Traditions change and are lost in time.”

…doesn’t reflect how historical warrior aristocracies actually behaved. They didn’t change major traditions so dramatically unless they suffered a huge military defeat, or they were intermarrying with external allies or internal vassals and adopting their customs.

I’m all for logically and realistically expanding the depiction of Klingon culture. There’s also plenty of interesting stuff from real-life world history that you could include without contradicting anything.

But DSC’s cast & crew shouldn’t justify questionable decisions by trying to gaslight the audience.

How is this a contradiction?

Well, the Klingons did not or less lost the eat with the Federation. That’s a rather make defeat

It’ll be a disaster without the original TNG cast.

Klingons looked like the TMP/TNG era versions during Enterprise, 100 or so years before DISCO. The augment virus explained the human-looking Klingons of the TOS era. But nothing explains the change from the Enterprise era to DISCO era. It’s not just about the hair. The DISCO Klingons have four nostrils, elongated heads, and wider spectrum of skin tones.

Fuller clearly just wanted to reboot them entirely. Again, this show was basically designed as a reboot, at least in Fuller’s eyes. I still don’t know why no one could just say that but the show would get far less complaints if they simply said that’s what it was on day one. The Klingons could look like anything then.

Agreed. Admit that this was a creative choice rather than pretend that they had planned it like this all along.

That’s it. Admit it was a creative choice and there is no need for an in universe explanation. IMHO, one of the very few mistakes Manny Coto made on Enterprise was the Klingon explanation two parter. It really wasn’t a big deal and I think most fans understood why the Klingons changed their look.

He could be playing another Kelpian, OR might he be playing the species that prey on Kelpians? Seems like we should eventually get to see one of those.

The show runners (or maybe Doug Jones) said that we will see the predators of the Kelpians. Apparently the Saru short episode takes place on his home planet.

Ah. Interesting.