Strange New Worlds Season 3 Just Confirmed a New Star Trek Original Series Character
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to flesh out characters barely seen in the Original Series by adding Dr. Roger Korby.
One of the great joys of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is seeing minor characters from The Original Series get fleshed out, characters like Dr. M’Benga and Number One. Another joy has been the romantic tension between Spock and Nurse Chapel, tension that has been complicated by the interactions with T’Pring, Spock’s Vulcan fiancée.
Both of those aspects are about to get much better with the third season of Strange New Worlds. Cillian O’Sullivan joins the cast as Dr. Roger Korby, the most respected archaeologist in the Federation. For those who know only Strange New Worlds and other recent Star Trek series, Dr. Korby refers only to the scientist under whom Chapel considered studying throughout the series’ second season. Chapel’s frustration about Spock refusing to acknowledge the feelings between them and her interest in Korby’s work drove several of her plots, especially in the musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody.”
Those who are familiar with Star Trek from its beginning will also recognize Korby as the chief antagonist in the episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” from the first season of The Original Series. By the time of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” Korby and Chapel had become engaged, even though she remained on the Enterprise under Captain Kirk.
Korby and his team went to the frozen planet Exo III to study the remains of the people who once lived there. When communications from Korby and his assistant Dr. Brown ceased, Kirk and the Enterprise went to investigate. To Chapel’s chagrin, they found Korby working alongside an attractive young student called Andrea and a hulking android called Ruk. The revelation that Andrea is also an android is tempered by the realization that both Korby and Brown are androids, robot facsimiles intended to replace humans when they die.
Given his death in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” Korby never again returned to Star Trek and wasn’t even mentioned in mainline continuity until Strange New Worlds. He did not even receive much attention in non-canonical works, appearing in just one short story and two novels.
In other words, Strange New Worlds has a lot of space to work with Korby, and to show us Nurse Chapel’s attraction to him. That said, Korby does have quite a bit of work to do if he’s going to win over fans. Not only do we already know his final fate, complete with building an attractive robot lady, but he also is an example of one of early Trek‘s worst tropes. Beautiful young women paired with much older scientists happened frequently in Star Trek, all the way through The Next Generation.
By returning to Korby, Strange New Worlds has an opportunity to make him more than part of an icky old trope. And if we get some more great character work and interesting romantic tension at the same time, then all the better.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 beams onto Paramount+ in 2025.
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Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!