3 ways Star Trek: Strange New Worlds improved the Original Series
By Chad Porto
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came into the fold to help bridge the gap between Star Trek's Discovery and The Original Series. Going back to tell stories is never a good idea, prequels are usually not as popular as sequels for a very good reason but Strange New Worlds felt necessary. Not only to help show how we got from the dismal Discovery to the optimistic Original Series but because the first Star Trek set up Strange New Worlds from the word "go."
The first Trek series wasn't the first, as we all know. There was a failed pilot that featured an entirely different cast of characters, save for Spock. The failed show would eventually be changed into what we would end up getting in the 1960s, with James Kirk and company. That could've been it, but Gene Roddenberry and the company opted to use the failed pilot in a two-part episode called "The Menagerie".
Thus bringing characters like Christopher Pike and Una-Chin Riley into the fold. All Strange New Worlds is doing is telling the story that Roddenberry had originally envisioned. So having this prequel series help punch up the events of the first Star Trek show just seemed like a natural idea.
After all, Strange New Worlds will directly lead into Pike's famed accident that is revealed in the Menagerie, so clearly, these two shows are connected in a deeper and more meaningful way than any other pair of shows in the franchise. So it makes sense that one would do all it could to help the presence of the other, which is what Strange New Worlds is doing.
Yet, what three aspects of the original show have Strange New Worlds really helped improved upon?