After the previous mission’s life-or-death skirmish with the Gorn, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 3 episode 2, “Wedding Bell Blues”, adjusts course to take in some affairs of the heart.
Nurse Christine Chapel has been away for three months, and Mr Spock is still carrying a torch for his ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately for the Enterprise’s science officer, however, she beams home with a new boyfriend — and his identity will be familiar to fans of the Original Series.
A meddling Q (played by Rhys Darby) does his best to twist the love triangle in Spock’s favor, but destiny — aka existing canon — means that Christine and Dr Roger Korby have to be together, even if it’s only for a short time. Here’s everything you need to know about Nurse Chapel’s new beau, and how he fits into wider “Star Trek” lore.
SET PHASERS TO CAUTION! SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU’RE YET TO WATCH “WEDDING BELL BLUES”
Why has Dr Roger Korby turned up on the Enterprise?
In the two-part season 2 finale/season 3 opener “Hegemony“, Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) was on her way to a three-month fellowship, studying archaeological medicine with legendary scientist Dr Roger Korby (Cillian O’Sullivan). He’s written 234 papers on the subject, so presumably knows his stuff.
At the start of “Wedding Bell Blues”, the fellowship is complete, the Enterprise is flight-ready after its bruising encounter with the Gorn, and Chapel is ready to return to Sickbay. She’s not alone, however, because Dr Korby has also beamed in for Federation Day, a celebration marking the centenary of the founding of the interplanetary UN in 2161.
He hasn’t traveled in a professional capacity either, because as Chapel tells a surprised Spock (Ethan Peck) in the transporter room, Dr Korby is there as her date. So much for taking a break from commitment to get a handle on feelings for Vulcan shipmates…
Why is Dr Roger Korby’s name so familiar?
As well as being mentioned a few times in “Strange New Worlds” season 2, Korby also appears in Original Series episode “What are Little Girls Made Of?”, set around five years after “Wedding Bell Blues” in the “Trek” chronology.
It’s clear that Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) hold the scientist in extremely high regard. Spock says he’s “often called the Pasteur of archaeological medicine” — a description also used by Dr Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) in “SNW” — and explains that “his translation of medical records from the Orion ruins revolutionized our immunization techniques”. Kirk adds that this was “required reading at the [Starfleet] Academy” and that he’s always wanted to meet him.
Perhaps more importantly, however, “What are Little Girls Made Of?” reveals that Korby is the ex-fiancé of Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett), and that she gave up a career in bio-research to serve on the Enterprise.
Where does Kirk’s Enterprise find Dr Korby?
The Enterprise arrives at the planet Exo III, five years after Dr Korby went missing on an expedition there. Although the world was once home to a thriving society, a fading sun means it’s now frozen (“100 degrees below zero”) and inhospitable.
So, with the chances of anyone having survived somewhere on the improbable side of minimal, the crew are somewhat surprised when Korby (played by Michael Strong) responds to their hails.
How did Korby survive on such a hostile world?
Along with his old ***istant Brown (an old acquaintance of Chapel) and a woman named Andrea (not an old acquaintance of Chapel), Korby has survived underground in a vast network of caves. These caves were once home to the “Old Ones”, the original inhabitants of Exo III who moved from the planet’s surface when the weather got a little too chilly.
What’s Korby been up to on Exo III?
It turns out that the Old Ones were sufficiently technologically advanced to build sophisticated androids. Long ago, Korby found one of these automatons named Ruk (played by Ted C***idy, most famous as Lurch in the 1960s “Addams Family” TV show) and reprogrammed him to do his bidding.
Unfortunately, Ruk misinterprets Korby’s instructions about protecting human life and kills two of Kirk’s security detail — yet more statistics in the ledger of deceased redshirts.
During his time on Exo III, Korby has become something of a zealot for android technology, and tries to convince Kirk that its implementation could be m***ively beneficial to the Federation. It’s also revealed that both Brown and Andrea are androids themselves.
Do Korby and Chapel live happily ever after in the Original Series?
Unfortunately not — which makes their romance in “Strange New Worlds” particularly tragic, seeing as the timeline means he’ll have to make his fateful trip to Exo III in the very near future.
In “What are Little Girls Made of?”, Korby is so fixated on bringing his technological discoveries to the Federation that he creates an unauthorised replica of Kirk, and sends the imposter back to the Enterprise. Spock only spots the fake because the OG Kirk has tricked the robot into using a totally out-of-character racial slur to address his first officer.
And then comes the big twist, as Korby scrapes his hand on a wall, peeling away a layer of skin to reveal that he’s an android too. Unable to survive in the frozen conditions of Exo III, OG Korby transferred his consciousness to a robot body. He’s now convinced that the technology can be used to eliminate disease, death and suffering in the human race.
He tries to ***ure Chapel that “I’m still the same as I was before”, but his obsessive behavior — he executes Ruk when he becomes an inconvenience — convinces her that he’s no longer the man she fell in love with. Distraught, Korby ends up vaporizing himself and Andrea with a phaser.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk tells Spock that Dr Korby “was never here”, while the grieving Chapel decides to remain on the ship.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays. Original Series episode “What are Little Girls Made Of?” is available on Paramount+ in the US and UK, and Netflix in the UK.
