In the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Lt. Commander Kirk (Paul Wesley) becomes the acting first officer of the USS Enterprise in a very tense and very sudden crisis. If fans have been craving an old-school sci-fi adventure episode of Trek, one in which people get to debate morality and the needs of the many versus the needs of the few, SNW Season 4, Episode 8, “Orders of Magnitude,” delivers. Written by Discovery and SNW stalwart Alan B. McElroy, “Orders of Magnitude” was the perfect new Trek episode for the franchise to air during the 60th anniversary week, as this one, quite easily, feels the most classic and most directly connected to The Original Series.
But, beyond its rollicking, classic Trek story about a commanding officer going too far — as well as an excellent landing party in danger story — “Orders of Magnitude” also now serves as the canonical origin of a very important, and extremely volatile space drug called cordrazine. For those paying attention, this all-important drug was a crucial part of the plot of “Orders of Magnitude,” but it’s also the catalyst for one of the greatest Trek episodes of all time, 1967’s “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Here’s how SNW just cleverly retconned cordrazine and made Jim Kirk’s strong opinion of the substance a little clearer.
