Strange New Worlds Is Bringing Back A Doomed Character From Star Trek: The Original Series

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is shaking up its cast for season 3. Martin Quinn, who debuted as future Enterprise Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the season 2 finale "Hegemony," will be joining the main cast. (Quinn is the third actor to play Scotty after James Doohan and Simon Pegg.)

Irish actor Cillian O'Sullivan will also be part of the recurring cast as archaeologist Dr. Roger Korby. Trekkies will recognize that name from "The Original Series," specifically the season 1 episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" In that episode, Korby (Michael Strong) was Nurse Chapel's (Majel Barrett) long lost fiance. The backstory was that he'd gone missing in 2261 (five years before the episode took place) on the planet Exo III. The Enterprise travels to the planet to search for him but all is not well. Korby found the remains of a civilization that built androids in their image, and now wants to replace all living things with these robots.

Presumably, "Strange New Worlds" (set in 2259) will feature the beginning of Chapel (Jess Bush) and Korby's relationship. If the show continues further, we might even get more context around his disappearance. While Chapel's attraction to Spock (Ethan Peck) has been a running subplot on "Strange New Worlds," that relationship was always doomed to fail: Chapel and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) weren't together in "The Original Series."

One note: technically Roger Korby has never appeared onscreen before. The final twist of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" is that Korby was mortally wounded on Exo III and put his consciousness into an android. After "Korby" vaporizes himself in front of Chapel and Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Spock rushes in to rescue the pair and asks where Korby is. Kirk concludes, "Doctor Korby was never here."

The "Star Trek" panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 included more news to whet Trekkies' appetites. The first clip of "Strange New Worlds" season 3 flips the script on season 2 episode "Charades." In that one, Spock was temporarily turned into a full human. Now, in this upcoming episode, four other Enterprise crew members — Chapel, Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and La'an (Christina Chong) have to become Vulcans for a mission.

Once the transformation is complete, they all begin acting prickly and logical and remind Spock that they're now more Vulcan than he is (genetically speaking). Of course, the serum to make them human once more doesn't work, presumably opening the door for the episode's conflict. This clip will also help Trekkies breathe easy until the season 3 premiere: it all but confirms that La'an, Ortegas (Melissa Nevia), and Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) will survive being kidnapped by the Gorn at the end of "Hegemony."

"Strange New Worlds" co-creator Akiva Goldsman confirmed at SDCC that season 3 will feature an episode homaging Hollywood murder mysteries. "Strange New Worlds" is playful about genre (season 2 gave us "Subspace Rhapsody," the first "Star Trek" musical episode). Goldsman says the "Strange New Worlds" team was "so satisfied by the result" of "challenging" themselves with the musical: "We will do any genre we feel the cast can work in, and so far, we haven't found one they can't."

Goldsman swears the murder mystery episode will get an in-universe explanation, just like "Subspace Rhapsody" offered for why the crew was breaking into song. If they really want to commit, though, they should shoot the episode in black and white with a Bernard Herrmann style score.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3 premieres on Paramount+ in 2025.