Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is going too much around with the show’s canon.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a show that did a lot to help relaunch Star Trek under a more successful era. When just relying on Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks, the brand didn’t see much in the way of upward momentum. Strange New Worlds, Prodigyg, and the third, nostalgia-fueled season of Picard combined to lift up the franchise.
Paramount+ is currently soaring after those three shows worked in tandem to increase the perception of the franchise. Fans love these three shows, and now with Strange New Worlds back on the scene, fans are once again looking forward to a strong second season.
That said, there might be a bit of an uproar from the fandom when they find out that the second season of Strange New Worlds is going to end up changing some of the franchise’s canon around.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds admits to mucking around with canon
Speaking to Den of Geek’s magazine arm, co-creator and co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman revealed that the show will muck around with the canon of the franchise a bit, saying;
"Look, when it comes to canon, we’re screwing with it a little bit. There was no indication that Uhura served on Pike’s Enterprise. We’ve invented that from whole cloth. We’ve retconned Spock and Chapel’s relationship. But, I think it is our job to get there. The closer we get to that moment, just after ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ we have to acknowledge canon. And the closer we get, we have to start to resemble The Original Series.” Why after “Where No Man Has Gone Before?"
The article goes on to explain when the original series actually starts as far as Strange New Worlds is concerned;
"Well, for Goldsman, The Original Series as we know it doesn’t really start until we get the core cast (including Dr. McCoy) and everybody else in their “correct” uniform colors, which wasn’t really the case until a few episodes into the show’s production run."
Arguably the biggest retcon does seem to be Spock’s and Nurse Chapel’s relationship, though we’re not exactly sure of all the details between those two characters, so it’s very possible that what they’re doing with the show currently can fit right in with the original depiction of those characters. Assuming they better explain how the characters go from where they are in Strange New Worlds to where they end up in The Original Series.