Klingon forehead ridges in "Enterprise"

[Master of Ossus]

I think that they should have taken the opportunity to give a canon explanation of the difference between TOS- and TNG-era Klingons. My favoured explanation is that there are two races of Klingon, one with lumpy foreheads and one with smooth foreheads caused by a recessive gene. The numerically-smaller smooth-headed race were dominant for several generations (the way that the numerically-lesser Sunni are dominant over the majority Shi'a in Islamic lands) and lumpy-heads tended to wear lots of disguising make-up to make them look smooth so as not to face career-disabling prejudice. When the smoothies screwed up the attempt to go to war with the Federation during TOS, they started loosing face. As little as 5-years later, lumpies were becoming captains of starships without forehead-reconstruction surgery.

Note, Kor, Kang and Kodos were all smoothies. They later had plastic surgery to have 'lumps' added as the balance of power tipped towards the numerically-greater lumpies. Those who were not so pragmatic... Well, we won't go into that, but I'm sure you can figure it out.

That doesn't explain why the Klingons in "Trials and Tribbleations" didn't recognize Worf, since that would require great intimacy of contact between the two different races.

[BenRG]

That doesn't explain why the Klingons in "Trials and Tribbleations" didn't recognize Worf, since that would require great intimacy of contact between the two different races.

True, but if the Lumpies were considered racially inferior, there might have been a taboo against acknowledging them in public. That might have been the reason that Worf took such diabolical pleasure in beating the stuffing out of those Smoothies during the bar-room brawl.

[Master of Ossus]

That doesn't explain why the Klingons in "Trials and Tribbleations" didn't recognize Worf, since that would require great intimacy of contact between the two different races.

True, but if the Lumpies were considered racially inferior, there might have been a taboo against acknowledging them in public. That might have been the reason that Worf took such diabolical pleasure in beating the stuffing out of those Smoothies during the bar-room brawl.

I guess that it's possible. I would hope that the actual ST writers would come up with a better explanation for it, but until then this is a valid, if slightly convoluted and complicated, theory.

[Patrick Ogaard]

An alternative idea (borrowing liberally from Cordwainer Smith):

The Rediscovery of Klingonkind, or:
How I Learned to Stop Being Civilized and Got in Touch with My Inner Targ

The Klingons tried hard to be civilized. They tried so very hard. They sucked up to the Romulans, even sold warships to the pointy-eared weasels. They also surgically removed their proud, prune-like foreheads, to make themselves fit in better with the smooth-talking Romulans, Humans, Vulcans, etc., etc. They tried to be materialistic and practical, to beat the others at their own game of sneakiness. Ultimately, none of that really worked for them.

What to do? It was not so long ago, in the days of that detestable bit of Targ dung called Archer, that the Klingons had still been using the time-honored strategy of thud and blunder. So maybe all that smooth foreheads and smooth talking wasn't really the way to go. A few decades of trying was quite enough.

So... Kang and Koloth and Kor banded together with K'mpec and Mogh and other proud but frustrated warriors who wanted something better, something more, than getting their butts whipped by all those smooth forehead alien dorks. And thus it came about that they had their foreheads surgically restored to all their rugose glory, resurrected their time-honored obsession with honor and personal combat, and it was done. The outnumbered smooth-forehead hardliners died quickly, hacked to pieces by their own bodyguards, and the more practical sorts slapped on some Prosthetic Forehead for Men (TM) until they could get their foreheads restored, fired their dentists, and then howled with the crowd.

Or something like that. Of course, big, bony, wrinkly foreheads and an obsession with close combat did not in fact make the Klingon Empire work any better. But at least there was much less of that sissy bathing going on.

[Montcalm]

And from DS9, Worf says that the switch is something personal and isn't discussed much or something.

Crap, I forgot about that shit. I still say you should look at the Klingons from TOS and TNG and Enterprise eras all the same(pretend TOS have ridges if needed).
I agree with RedImp in that the Klingons being dumbed down should have pissed of the fans more than an improvement in makeup effects. Do people complain about the better looking andorians in Enterprise? hell their antenae move in Enterprise but they did not in TOS.

Well then they could put the ridges on using computer manipulation.

[Patrick Ogaard]

As for why no one recognized Worf, they might genuinely not have recognized Worf as a Klingon.

The Trek galaxy is just lousy with human lookalike species, there are Vulcan lookalike species, and it seems almost inevitable that there would be some Klingon lookalikes. Also, since all proper military Klingons had got their forehead-smoothing "real boy" operations, and since there were no non-military Klingons supposed to be in the area, why assume the ugly guy at the table was a Klingon? Especially if that ugly guy was dressed in excessively poor taste as some kind of two-bit merchant or scout or something equally unmanly and icky?

As mostly relatively young Klingons (as junior starship crewers should be) they might have never even seen a full-grown Klingon sporting a full forehead, except for those dirty, lazy scum from the slums or the backwoodsy colonies where they couldn't even afford a decent forehead adjustment for their kids.

[Admiral Johnason]

Now, I liked the TOS Klingons better, bbut B&B couldn't apply the old look to Ent. First, most people (new fans) would not be able to recongize them. Second, when you have the money in Hollywood, you should use it. Third, B&B want to keep the current Klingon look.