One of the greatest challenges for the folks behind Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is typical for prequels. They must create new, entertaining episodes that don’t drastically conflict with the official canon. Fans debate whether Strange New Worlds is guilty of this with the romance between Spock and Christine Chapel, specifically citing key episodes from The Original Series. Not only does this romance not conflict with them, but viewers aware of this new dynamic might also find it actually improves these TOS moments.
Before delving into any specific strikes against the canon, it’s important to note that there are big continuity errors within The Original Series itself. What complicated matters is that NBC debuted Star Trek episodes out of order, including two prominent episodes with Majel Barrett as Chapel. Her first appearance was supposed to be “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” ends with her agreeing to join the Enterprise crew. Except, her second appearance in “Naked Time” — in which she professes her love to Spock — debuted first. Despite all this, Strange New Worlds didn’t break two classic TOS episodes, but rather it “fixes” what could be seen as plot holes.
Christine Chapel’s First Star Trek: The Original Series Episode Set Up a Romance
Stills from Star Trek with Christine Chapel and SpockImage via Paramount
Gene Roddenberry created the character to give Barrett a recurring role after Number One was replaced after the first failed Star Trek pilot. Her name is a sort of pun on the Sistine Chapel, because she was supposed to be angelic and saintly. “I didn’t care that much for Nurse Chapel, to tell you the truth. She really wasn’t that exciting a person or that exciting a character for an actress to play,” Barret said in an interview with Star Trek Monthly in 1998. This may be because she was essentially created to love Spock and get nothing in return.
The purpose of Chapel’s feelings for Spock in TOS was to showcase how his Vulcan nature isolated him from others. Still, her deep love for Spock seemingly came out of nowhere. Barrett and other producers, like Robert Justman, felt it made the character “weak” and “namby-pamby,” according to Marc Cushman’s and Susan Osborn’s These Are the Voyages books.
Similarly, Spock admitting affection for her in “The Naked Time” proved he had emotions but suppressed them. Yet, the context from Strange New Worlds deepens this interaction beyond simply the effects of “space madness.”
The pilot of Strange New Worlds introduces Jess Bush as Chapel, a veteran of the Klingon War serving on the Enterprise as a “civilian exchange” nurse. Early episodes tease a mutual attraction between the characters. They act on those feelings after Spock and his betrothed T’Pring have a bitter (for Vulcans) fight and, in Friends parlance, go on a break. Chapel eventually decides to end this affair, after a time-traveling Brad Boimler tells her she is not by the side of the Spock who does “important” things for the galaxy’s future.
At first, Spock still pines for her, and this cleverly subverts their original TOS dynamic. That history gives each character’s admission of love in “The Naked Time” more significance. It took a deadly space virus to erode their inhibitions enough to admit the truth of their feelings to each other after more than a decade. That context imbues the scenes with real emotional tension than when it was just about the embarrassment of oversharing with a new co-worker.
Strange New Worlds Avoids Conflict With ‘Amok Time’ Thanks to Its Use of Subtext
Stills from Star Trek with Christine Chapel and SpockImage via Paramount
Season 2’s premiere episode, “Amok Time,” was written by Theodore Sturgeon with rewrites from Dorothy Fontana, Gene Coon, and Roddenberry (who came up with the story idea). In fact, according to These Are the Voyages, Fontana was the one who put Chapel into the episode instead of a new character called Maggie. She recalled the scene from “The Naked Time,” and felt it made sense that Chapel would care for Spock as he went through a Vulcan mating madness called “pon farr” every seven years.
As the original keeper of canon for Star Trek, Fontana often explained in interviews and at conventions that pon farr wasn’t the only time Vulcans could be intimate. So, T’Pring’s presence in Strange New Worlds isn’t a canon violation. They were “telepathically bonded” as children (which is why Spock is seen looking at a child’s photo in “Amok Time”). Yet, the episode never mentions when they last saw each other. When the adult T’Pring appears on the Enterprise’s viewscreen, Spock’s statement that she’s his “wife” is a shock to his fellow crew.
In Strange New Worlds, none of the characters on the bridge shares a scene with T’Pring, except for Chapel. When the characters began their affair, she reasonably assumed Spock broke up with T’Pring. In Chapel’s reaction shot in “Amok Time,” Barrett didn’t play surprise. Chapel is shocked and, one could infer, a little hurt. Strange New Worlds justifies that response, especially since Spock never before called T’Pring his “wife.” Similarly, their breakup in Strange New Worlds explains why she would be so angry at Spock.
Spock tells Kirk no “outworlder” can know about pon farr except for the “very few who’ve been involved” with Vulcans themselves. Since they were intimate, Chapel may understand what he’s going through better than Kirk or Doctor McCoy. She may have even seen this as a way to rekindle their relationship, if only to save Spock’s life as Saavik did in Star Trek III. So, her tearful scene in Spock’s quarters, when she tells him they are taking him to T’Pring, becomes heartbreaking in a different way.
Spock and Chapel’s Romance in Strange New Worlds Elevates Their TOS Dynamic
Stills from Star Trek with Christine Chapel and SpockImage via Paramount
Some, including William Shatner, call “Plato’s Stepchildren” a “dull” and “forgettable” episode. Yet, the story is one of TOS’ darkest. Before the historic kiss between Kirk and Uhura, the episode’s villains force Spock and Chapel to kiss first. She tells him that “for so long [she] wanted to be close” to him, admitting she feels “ashamed.” In turn, Spock says he’s “failed” her. Like the other scenes, the subtext here is that this is their first kiss. Thanks to Strange New Worlds, the moment remains troubling (as it’s supposed to) but for different reasons.
In the most recent season, the prequel series explained the context of Chapel’s love for Doctor Roger Korby. In TOS, her introduction comes amidst the story of finding out that her long-lost fiancé was dead. Yet, in “The Naked Time,” she all of a sudden is in love with Spock. Even if the episodes debuted in the proper order, it’s a weak character choice that makes Chapel seem flighty or irrational. After Strange New Worlds, this is no longer the case. Both characters may have lost their chance at happiness in love when she ended their affair and came back partnered with Korby.
In Season 3, Spock moved on from Chapel and began an affair with La’an, a character whose fate after Strange New Worlds is unknown. This increased fan complaints, though not about canon but rather “soap opera drama” around Spock’s love life. Fair critique or not, the relationship between Spock and Chapel is important to the bigger Star Trek picture. Thanks to the reliance on subtext between them in TOS, their most important scenes work on a deeper emotional level. Instead of being lovesick over a Vulcan she just met, Strange New Worlds helps to make Chapel a more well-rounded character.
The biggest Star Trek “canon problem” has nothing to do with narrative or worldbuilding details. Fans used to try to reconcile the glaring continuity errors in The Original Series and TNG-era shows. Today, they claim Strange New Worlds got Star Trek “wrong” because things like Spock’s affairs or Pike’s meetings with Kirk weren’t explicitly mentioned in past shows. Fans who take such a rigid view miss out on the way Strange New Worlds actually adds layers to arguably shallow TOS moments.
The complete Star Trek: The Original Series streams on Paramount+ and Pluto TV, while Strange New Worlds will debut two final seasons on Paramount+ starting in 2026.
Release Date
May 5, 2022
Network
Paramount+
Showrunner
Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman
Anson Mount
Captain Christopher Pike
