Star Trek: Discovery Actor Explains Controversial Klingons Were “An Ancient Sect Of Outcasts”

Mary Chieffo, who played Chancellor L'Rell, explains why Star Trek: Discovery's controversial Klingons were different from the prior iterations of the warrior race. Star Trek: Discovery's Klingons were widely disliked during seasons 1 and 2, as the prequel reinvented the Klingons' design to be bald, more alien, and animalistic, setting the stage for the Klingon War with the United Federation of Planets. By Star Trek: Discovery season 2, L'Rell had risen to become the Klingon Chancellor, and Discovery began slowly shifting the Klingons' look toward the more popular 24th-century design.

Mary Chieffo joined Star Trek: Enterprise's Dominic Keating and Connor Trinner on their new podcast, The D-Con Chamber, for a far-ranging conversation about her career and role as L'Rell on Star Trek: Discovery. Discussing the methodology she used to create the dialect specific to Star Trek: Discovery's version of the Klingons, Chieffo delved into the Klingons' and L'Rell's backstory, which helps to explain why Discovery's Klingons were different. Read her quote and watch The D-Con Chamber video below:

In the way we were speaking the [Klingon] language, because we were speaking it more than any Klingon had in the past, we were really diving into, also, an untouched version of the language. Because at that point, timeline-wise, there was a moment in Enterprise, obviously - the pilot, right? [Where Enterprise met Klingons.] But since then, the idea was that there had been no contact. Or, throughout whatever y’all exprienced on Enterprise, once you had your experience, then nothing until this point.

I loved the idea, particularly with T’Kuvma, that they were kind of this ancient sect of Klingon houses, and that we were also kind of the outcasts. For L’Rell, as is disclosed, I love a good expositional line, when I do start speaking English, I’ve captured Lorca, and I say, ‘I’m descended from spies’. That’s why I know English really well. (laughs) But I did love that House Mo’Kai, which is my mother’s side of the family, is a house of spies, is one of the few female-led Klingon houses, and I love that they were spies because, in a lot of ways, that was the way these women were able to function in this patriarchal Klingon society. Because the Klingon world is still much more partriarchal than the utopian Federation.

What Happened To Star Trek: Discovery's Klingons?

Klingons returned in Strange New Worlds

Klingons were never seen again in Star Trek: Discovery after season 2. Klingons like L'Rell, Voq/Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), and T'Kuvma (Chris Obi) were major characters in the early years of Star Trek: Discovery, with historic firsts depicted like L'Rell's rise as the first female Klingon High Chancellor and Voq becoming the first Klingon surgically altered into a human. However, audience reaction to Star Trek: Discovery's Klingons was so overwhelmingly negative, the series' time jump to the 32nd century literally distanced itself from the controversial Klingons of Star Trek: Discovery's first two seasons.

23rd century Klingons finally returned in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, set in the immediate years after Star Trek: Discovery season 2. But gone were Discovery's Klingons, and Strange New Worlds depicted the warrior race to resemble how they look in Star Trek: The Next Generation's 24th century. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War" retconned the Klingon War so that Klingons did not look as they did on Star Trek: Discovery. Meanwhile, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds introduced singing Klingons, which didn't receive the vitriol that the Klingons did on Star Trek: Discovery.