Kor

So the other day I was watching another great season four episode, "The Sword of Kahless" when I thought to myself, "Why, who's that handsom devil?" in reference to this guy:

Then it dawned on me. That's Kor. THE KOR. As in... this guy:

And I don't just mean it's the same character--though it is--it's the same actor. John Colicos played Kor, the first major Klingon in all of Star Trek, way back in in the very first season of TOS in 1967. He was being a total jerk in "Errand of Mercy" when he led a bunch of Klingons as they took over peaceful and (apparently) primitive Organia. He said things like, "I don't trust men who smile too much," and was subsequently defeated by this guy: 

Actually that's not entirely true. Kirk and Kor are just about to have at it when the Organians reveal their true power and Kor, disappointed, says their fight, "would have been glorious." I agree. 

Kor makes a return in TAS, wearing a nifty pinkish-purple uniform but is voiced by James Doohan (who basically voiced every single alien they encountered because he was amazing like that) and we don't catch wind of Kor again until years later (actually in the DS9 episode "Blood Oath" wherein I got too distracted by Dax's storyline to pick-up on who he was) when he's apparently had his turtle head surgically installed so no one can tell his grandpa had the augment virus (ie- the flat head, thanks to some crap Data's grandpa pulled in Enterprise) and he looks totally awesome when he recruits Worf for a legendary quest to find the sword of Kahless. 

Worf is like... crazy pleased:

"OMG it's Kor and he's TALKING to me. Just play it cool. I can't even...
Did he just ask me to accompany him on a quest?!!! Squee! We'll be BFF FOREVER!" 

He's basically in full-on fanboy mode and ends up hanging out with Kor all night long drinking and singing songs about how awesome Kor is. (BTW- The same thing recently happened to me) Worf, Dax, and Kor head out on their epic quest of epicness, fight some jerks, eat some cave critters, and Worf soon realizes why there's an old human saying about not meeting your heroes.

Even though Kor might not be everything Worf had hoped, he's still an amazing character and the fact that he faced down Kirk on more than one occasion and lived to sing songs about it is basically the best thing ever. It was thirty years between Colicos' appearances as Kor--six months in blog-time--and I'm SO glad he came back to Star Trek. This show spans generations so when an old friend shows up, after such a long time, I can't help but be happy to see him.