By Jon Brooks
I haven’t watched the Paramount+ series “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” since the show’s second season in 2023.
During that season, the series featured a musical episode titled “Subspace Rhapsody” (where a subspace fold causes the crew to sing their emotions).
I thought it was fun at the time. I remember reading years ago that a producer was actually considering creating a “Star Trek” Broadway musical (I might’ve read that in Entertainment Weekly).
The folks behind “Strange New Worlds” have just launched another “novelty episode” of the space series.
I had to check it out (even though I was skipping ahead from where I left off).
The episode is titled “Level-Five Transporter Accident,” and a mechanical issue with the Enterprise’s transporter system turns the crew into Muppets (while Mr. Scott is doing some convoluted-sounding experiment to expand long-range transportation).
All of them were transformed into puppets except for Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck), who was piloting a shuttlecraft at the time.
And yes, the puppets are essentially Muppets. The fuzzy puppets were created (and puppeteered) by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
This episode of SNW has created a firestorm of debate among “Star Trek” fans online (some the posts made me miss the days when the biggest debate fans had was whether or not they should be referred to as “Trekkies” or “Trekkers”).
Modern “Star Trek” (content that has been released since J.J. Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek” movie) has elicited considerable debate among stalwart fans online.
There has been a considerable amount of discussion about how the franchise has strayed from the original vision creator Gene Roddenberry had in the 1960s.
Some fans think that the current showrunners aren’t taking the franchise seriously anymore.
Anson Mount (who plays Pike on the series) told SYFY Wire, “The puppet thing just existed out there as a joke. Every season would be ‘The puppet episode, right?’”
As you might imagine, the “puppet episode” has quickly become the “poster child” for fans’ perceived shortcomings with modern “Star Trek.”
I mentioned earlier in this post that I enjoyed the musical episode in season 2 of SNW. Sure, it was silly, but it was executed well and I thought it was fun.
I was hopeful the puppet-based “Level-Five Transporter Accident” episode would work in a similar fashion.
At times, modern “Star Trek” properties have been pretty dreary in nature (see “Star Trek: Discovery” as an example). So I don’t mind these moments of levity.
Unfortunately, this episode sort of felt flat for me.
Sure, it was cute to see the crew as puppets, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly.
You could tell that the writers didn’t know what to do with the gimmick. Moreover, they wrapped up the episode with the “laziest” solution to the problem, ever.
Considering the work it took to create the puppets and configure the sets to accommodate them, it is a shame they didn’t have a good story to tie it all together.
It could have been much, much better.
While “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is no stranger to “jumping the shark,” jumping the Muppet wasn’t the creative flex they were hoping for.
If you would like to check out the “Level-Five Transporter Accident” (S4, E5) for yourself, all episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” are streaming on Paramount+.
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