Paramount Plus dropped a new trailer for Star Trek: Discovery season 4 at the show’s New York Comic Con panel last week. Aside from Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and U.S.S. Discovery crew members, the two-minute video features various alien species, including a Ferengi who is a Starfleet officer.
Trekkies who have watched Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are familiar with Ferengis, so when the new Ferengi character appears in the trailer, some fans noticed that he looks quite different from Nog (Aaron Eisenberg) and other Ferengi characters that was previously introduced in the franchise.
TrekCore, the web’s largest Star Trek resource, confirmed that the Ferengi character featured in the new Star Trek: Discovery season 4 trailer has an updated design. In a tweet, TrekCore pointed out that the revised Ferengi design “includes slight points to those big ears, echoing back to Andy Probert’s original 1987-era concept designs for the species.”
Our first new alien update for #StarTrekDiscovery's fourth season: the Ferengi!
The revised design includes slight points to those big ears, echoing back to Andy Probert's original 1987-era concept designs for the species.#StarTrek pic.twitter.com/Ukma9Xq6NY
— TrekCore.com 🖖 (@TrekCore) October 9, 2021
While some fans are okay with it, others find the updated Ferengi look a bit off as it lacks a signature feature from the old design ― the brow line that runs across their face into their ears. Twitter user Spock0 commented that “separating the ears and the brows makes the design look more generic. More like a goblin. Less Ferengi.”
The creative team of the show has yet to address the design change, but a fan tweeted that the show probably updated the Ferengi look to cut production costs. “They can 3D print ears and stuff now but making a single piece plastic injection mold take a lot of tooling costs… per actor,” wrote Jessie Addington in a Twitter post. “This is about $$$.”
In addition to the new Ferengi character, another new face that caught the attention of fans in the trailer is the female Federation president who is seen talking to Burnham at the start of the video. According to ComicBook.com, the Federation president is a mix of Cardassian, Bajoran, and human ancestry. Though details about her are very limited, she already is an interesting character, because she’s basically an embodiment of all the former conflicts explored in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, leaders of Federation and non-Federation worlds work together against a mysterious threat unlike any they have encountered before. Until they understand the anomaly well enough to predict its path, billions of more lives will be at risk, so Burnham and the rest of the U.S.S. Discovery crew courageously step up and warp straight into the anomaly.
As revealed in the previous promo videos for the upcoming season, the anomaly is five light-years in size and behaves erratically, going anywhere at any time without warning. Things look so dreadful that the Vulcans, Orions, and Ferengis decide to team up just to put an end to the destructive threat.
Star Trek: Discovery season 4 will premiere on Paramount Plus on November 18th.