Star Trek: 10 Best Klingon Episodes

It's hard to imagine the Star Trek universe without Klingons. They are warriors who are driven by personal honor and loyalty to the Empire. They're also passionate artists and creators, making some of the galaxy's most revered poetry and unlistenable operas. But their relationship with the Federation as been one of their most defining qualities.

After a botched First Contact meeting, the Klingons and the Federation ended up as enemies for many years. This enmity played out through The Original Series as well as the prequel series, Enterprise. By the time The Next Generation rolled around, there was a tenuous peace between the Klingons and the Federation, leading to the first Klingon ever to serve in Starfleet.

Worf was the window through which fans grew to learn more about Klingons as a culture. They moved from being one dimensional space warriors to being a species with depth. Episodes focusing on Klingon politics and culture continued throughout TNG, Deep Space Nine and even into Voyager, to an extent. Discovery, a series set in a different reality, has a much different but no less interesting depiction of Klingons

Still, there are certainly some Klingon episodes that stand out above the rest.

While Enterprise does have its fans, it's certainly not a favorite for many Star Trek watchers. It retconned a few things that the Star Trek elite had taken as gospel for a long time. You have to be careful if you're gonna change the facts Trekkers hold dear. But retconning can also be a power that's used for good. Take Klingon forehead ridges as a case in point.

In The Original Series, Klingons had flat, ridgeless foreheads. By the time the movies started, they definitely had ridges and that look persisted for the next few series. But Enterprise was set before TOS and Klingons had ridges. In the two part story that played out across "Affliction" and "Divergence," the reasons for this change were explained as a virus that impacted many Klingons, removing their ridges.

The virus was stopped with the assistance of Doctor Phlox, preventing it from impacting all Klingons. Over the generations, the impact of the virus lessened and eventually disappeared entirely.

It was the best possible explanation for a change in the story that worked across all series. These aren't necessarily the best episodes of any Star Trek series that you're going to watch but they did tie up a huge plot hole that had been plaguing the Star Trek universe for years, one fans wanted an answer to.