First time I saw this episode, I thought that headgear was part of their face
My 6-year-old brain thought that it was like a tumor or something
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2b203e3dd23a1d49c1fedb472e11d7cd-lqOpen linkView original on lemm.ee
TNG's costume department had a lot of...interesting ideas.
The working theory that it was based off Russian tankers padded helmets from WW2
What episode is that?
TNG 4x12 - The Wounded
Marc Alaimo playing a Cardassian besides Dukat!
TNG, "The Wounded." First appearance of the Cardassians. I don't remember if that weird headgear ever made a second appearance.
I'm pretty sure it never showed up again! This was also the only episode they pronounced kanar as kaynar instead of kuhnar. I'd have to look through the episode to be sure, but I think the Cardassian phasers were also a different color than the orange they were in later appearances.
It's always interesting to see how they change things as they see what works. It does make me wonder what the original pronunciation of kanar was though. Did the actor read it wrong, or did they change it!
In fact, the script specified that it be pronounced "KAY-nar": https://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/186.txt So that must have been forgotten/changed at some point, or maybe it is the auditory equivalent of "whisky" vs. "whiskey".
Very interesting! I had been planning to look up the episode to see for sure, but I forgot to do it.
The pronunciation they ended up going with rolls off the tongue a little easier for me, so maybe that was the reason. I don't remember the first DS9 episode to mention it, but I remembered it being in 2x21 The Wire, so I looked that up. https://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/441.txt By this point it had been changed to the more common version.
This gives Kryten vibes.