Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 74

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Popular Culture Review

While Dax yearns for the time of the original series, the episode also makes fun
of this textual past. Attention is drawn to the fact that the alien Klingons look totally
different in the new series to how they looked in the original series. Seated in a space
station bar, the Klingon Worf looks uncomfortable as his DS9 crewmates Odo, Miles
O’Brien and Dr Julian Bashir survey the other Klingons in the bar. Worf, with his
ridged forehead partially hidden by a scarf, uncomfortably avoids their gaze; the
Klingons around him are distinguishable from humans only by a distinctive uniform
and a predilection for goatee beards.
Worf: “They are Klingons. And it is a long story.”
O’Brien: “What happened? Some kind of genetic engineering?”
Julian: “A viral mutation?”
Worf: “We do not discuss it with outsiders.”
The seasoned S ta r Trek viewer, however, knows exactly what caused this racial
transformation. Better make-up techniques and higher budgets led to a production
decision that broke continuity between the original series of S ta r Trek and its
subsequent film and television manifestations.
The changes between the original and sequel series of S ta r Trek are such that
when viewed as a entire fictional world S ta r Trek does not merely revisit its past,
but rewrites it. The video sleeve of “Trials and Tribble-ations