Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is perilously close to rewriting Nurse Chapel's first Star Trek story - here's why it should. Played by Majel Barrett, Christine Chapel debuted during Star Trek's very first season, but wouldn't truly make a splash until "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" This original series classic introduced Dr. Roger Korby - Chapel's ex-fiancé. The pair had met, fallen in love and been engaged prior to the Enterprise's five-year mission, but Korby then disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Chapel joined the Enterprise's medical staff hoping she'd one day find out what become of her beloved.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds introduces Jess Bush as a younger Nurse Chapel on "civilian exchange" as an Enterprise crew member. Episode 5 ("Spock Amok") confirms she's also still single. Indeed, not only is Chapel romantically unattached, she's experiencing commitment issues while pining after Spock (who's got a thing for T'Pring instead). The timeline leaves Star Trek: Strange New Worlds much work to do. "Spock Amok" takes place in 2259, whereas "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" confirms Dr. Korby went missing in 2261. In that narrow gap of two years, Chapel must depart the Enterprise, meet Korby, fall in love with Korby, get engaged to Korby, and lose Korby.

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Though not impossible, that all feels like a desperately tall order. More likely, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds plans to retcon Chapel's history with Korby and move in a different direction with her character entirely. Ignoring established canon is typically tantamount to sacrilege in Star Trek, but in the case of Christine Chapel, forgetting about Korby might be the best course of action. Because just as viewers already witnessed with Celia Rose Gooding's Uhura, Strange New Worlds is adding far more nuance and characterization to Jess Bush's Chapel than Majel Barrett's version ever received in Star Trek: The Original Series.

Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" aside, Chapel largely found herself limited to background appearances in sickbay and sporadic involvement with Captain Kirk's bridge crew. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, however, is digging deeper into Chapel's aspirations, quirks, skills, doubts and fears - not to mention a lighter, maverick personality we never saw during her 1960s escapades. Losing Roger Korby from Chapel's Star Trek story allows Strange New Worlds to continue developing Jess Bush as a main character rather than a background presence, without the lingering specter of a doomed relationship in her immediate future. If cramming Dr. Korby into Nurse Chapel's timeline means curtailing her current character growth whatsoever, Strange New Worlds is better off giving Christine a fresh slate without him.

Roger Korby's cancelled engagement to Nurse Chapel isn't a thread Star Trek's grand tapestry will greatly miss. The exorcism of their relationship isn't like a war between the Klingons and Federation, or a secret adopted sister, which ripple across Star Trek's entire timeline like a shock wave. The canon shift would also lose a less savory aspect of Chapel's backstory. When she and Korby first met, he was a teacher and she was his student. That kind of entanglement isn't going to fly in 2022 like it did in 1966, so forgetting the entire ordeal does everybody a favor in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Nurse Chapel herself most of all.

More: Strange New Worlds Has An Amazing DS9 Sisko Easter Egg

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues Thursday on Paramount+.