“Strange New Worlds” is set a few years prior to the original “Star Trek,” so a great deal of time has been devoted to moving certain pieces around a canonical chessboard, arranging players/characters so that they may end up where they need to be in time for the 1966 “Star Trek” pilot. Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) is already on the Enterprise, as are Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Spock (Ethan Peck), and Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun). Some characters may already be stationed on the ship (Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty), but we haven’t seen them yet. Kirk (Paul Wesley) keeps visiting the Enterprise but currently serves on board the U.S.S. Farragut. He’s also not a captain yet. Pike (Anson Mount) will, in due time, become grievously injured in a horrible accident.
And Nurse Chapel will meet and become engaged to Dr. Korby. Nurse Chapel has been, over the course of the second season of “Strange New Worlds,” trying to advance her career by entering one of several medical study-abroad programs. In “Subspace Rhapsody,” her acceptance into one such program is confirmed, and she’s eager to accept the offer. In doing so, she would leave the Enterprise and go study with Dr. Korby, forcing her to leave Spock behind. Chapel and Spock have been pursuing an illicit affair for the past few episodes.
None of Dr. Korby and Nurse Chapel’s relationship has ever been dramatized, and it remains to be seen if Dr. Korby will appear on screen in “Strange New Worlds” (there is but one episode left in the show’s second season).