Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 5, “Level Five Transporter Accident.”
Alright then, the puppet episode is finally here.
We’ve known this one was coming ever since it was first teased, what, two San Diego Comic-Cons ago? The latest in high-concept Strange New Worlds episodes – this directly follows the zany Hangover riff from two weeks ago, and last week’s film noir homage – “Level Five Transporter Accident” certainly does feel like an accident… but not one that can be fixed with mere needle and thread the way the puppets here can. Indeed, its only saving grace is the performance from the always reliable Ethan Peck as Spock, who manages to walk the line between comedic Vulcan acting and conflicted Vulcan acting just fine.
When Scotty (Martin Quinn) tries to push his transporter tech to its limits – a nice nod to the Kelvinverse movies, where that Scotty (Simon Pegg) makes some big leaps with the old beam ‘em up technology – things go awry. Since he’s using his childhood puppet “Little Ricky” as a test subject, when the system gets screwy, somehow everyone onboard winds up beaming into puppet versions of themselves. And mostly annoying puppets at that.
I’ve complained about this before, but one of my issues with these Strange New Worlds concept episodes is that a lot of said concepts have been done before, if not ad infinitum, on other shows. The musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody” was great and all, but you know, not exactly an original idea. A film noir episode? Been there. LARPing with the crew? Mmmhmmm. And now we get a puppet episode, the idea of which I can recall seeing at least as far back as on Angel 22 years ago, when it felt like a new idea.
And look, there’s nothing wrong with recycling old premises, but if you’re gonna do it, you gotta bring something new to the table. It’s got to work, and “Level Five Transporter Accident” mostly doesn’t. For starters, by its very nature, the notion of having most of your cast turn into puppets is going to bring a heightened sense of absurdity to things; the characters even harness this idea in their quest to defeat the nasty if forgettable Orion villains of the week. But there’s something about suddenly hearing voices like Anson Mount’s and Christina Chong’s coming from the puppets that I found too jarring. It’s all supposed to be fun and funny, but it’s mostly not, and once again Mount’s take on Pike veers into “this is not a Starfleet captain” territory, wool stuffing notwithstanding.
So what does work here? I think I laughed out loud twice, and both times it was involving the guy at the navigation console next to Ortegas (Melissa Navia) who would usually have been a Red Shirt but instead here is just a funny puppet. His wordless panic about the situation is great. And the puppet designs themselves (created by the Jim Henson Company) are really nice – like, they should sell them on the Paramount+ store because people would want to collect them all. Oh, and the shots near the end of the episode, with the crew all floating around in space in puppet form, are just quite sweet (and really, is how the hour should’ve ended, instead of turning it into an “It was all a dream” scenario for some reason).
And then there’s the Spock stuff, which saves the episode from disaster. Peck’s comedic timing is notable, as he has to run around doing everyone’s jobs for them to keep the ship running, since their little puppet fingers are mostly useless. The actor really has mastered Spock – he and Mount have been playing these characters since 2019 at this point, when they debuted on Star Trek: Discovery – and he always rolls with the various curveballs the writers have thrown at him. Too Vulcan, too human, too Vulcan/human, he’s done it all, and here he’s dealing with not just getting dumped by another crewmate (though La’an was pretty graceful in the dumping, unlike Chapel previously), but also in having to go to his ex, T’Pring (Gia Sandhu), for help in the aftermath of the incident onboard the Griffin earlier this season. I’m glad to see they didn’t just drop that thread, and continuing to explore its impact on both Spock and La’an is welcome.
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
- About it all being a dream… was it? Little Ricky sure seemed malevolent in that last shot… or maybe Spock just needs more logic training.
- But what is this “studying logic” thing anyway? Hasn’t Spock been doing that since he was in diapers?
- Could Little Ricky be a reference to the onscreen son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz from I Love Lucy? The puppet even has a red crop of hair on its head. Don’t forget, the pair’s production company Desilu was behind the original Star Trek series.
- Pelia (Carol Kane) pointing out that they shouldn’t be able to hear each other in space and how it doesn’t even make sense is an appreciated jab at the grumps in the audience like me.
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