EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview contains spoilers for ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 4, Episode 5, “Level-Five Transporter Accident.”
Key Highlights
- The puppet episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds features Jim Henson-built puppets and involved 14 puppeteers, requiring extensive planning.
- Showrunners Henry Alonso Meyers and Akiva Goldsman discuss the creative process behind the episode and insights into the final season.
- The finale of Season 4, titled “Tomorrow’s Enterprise,” is hinted to be a “timey-wimey” adventure.
Strange New Worlds has officially delivered one of the most delightfully unusual Star Trek episodes of the entire franchise with Season 4, Episode 5, “Level-Five Transporter Accident.” The episode was first teased at SDCC 2025, as the creative team revealed that the series would officially be doing a “Puppet” episode in its then-distant fourth season. The episode goes full Muppets, with incredibly designed puppets from the Jim Henson Company, plenty of physical comedy, and even a touch of romance.
Ahead of the season, I sat down with co-showrunners Henry Alonso Meyers and Akiva Goldsman to discuss this long-awaited episode, which Meyers co-wrote with Dana Horgan. During our conversation, Meyers revealed that the episode required hours upon hours of planning, new builds for the bridge set, and 14 dedicated puppeteers bringing the crew of the Enterprise to life. Meanwhile, Goldsman teased a “timey-wimey” adventure for the Season 4 finale, “Tomorrow’s Enterprise,” which references the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” He also spoke about the six-episode final season expected to air next year and promised to go out on an emotional note. You can watch the interview in the player above or read the full transcript of our conversation below.
This ‘Strange New Worlds’ Episode Required 14 Puppeteers and 100s of Hours of Planning
“I think that there is a median between people who love Muppets and people who love Star Trek, and we really wanted to find a way to explore that.”
Image via Jan Thijs/Paramount+
COLLIDER: My favorite episodes each season are always the ones where you guys take full advantage of the premise that anything can happen in space. Henry, I know you co-wrote this one with Dana Horgan. How did the concept for this puppet episode come about, and what was the most exciting part of pushing beyond our expectations for this episode?
HENRY ALONSO MYERS: We had been talking about doing a puppet episode for a long time, and we felt that, much like we did with the musical, that in order to do it, we couldn’t just half do it. We couldn’t just do a sort of slight version of it. We really needed to rise up and try to make the best possible version of it.
Then the other thing that we really needed to do was make sure that it felt like a Star Trek episode distinctly, specifically, and in all of the story. The transporter accident kind of ended up being the thing that pulled it all together. We hadn’t done a transporter accident episode yet. We felt like this was a great opportunity to try that.
And part of the goal, I think, in doing the episode was: what is the biggest, most difficult thing that we haven’t had a chance to do yet? I think part of it was also like, if this is the last season, because we never know, what are the things that you really, really wish you’d tried? I think that there is a median between people who love Muppets and people who love Star Trek, and we really wanted to find a way to explore that.
I mean, part of our goal in doing this show is to make a show that is, at its heart, for lovers of Star Trek, but also that reaches out to people who’ve never seen Star Trek before and present something for them. So, I feel like there is something for people of all types in a given season. You may not love every episode, but you will love all of the show. There’s something for you in everything, and our goal was to do a big reach for people who had never seen it and do a big reach for people who have seen it and know it in their hearts.
I’d love to hear more from either of you about the logistics of filming this episode with so many puppets. How many puppeteers did you have on set? How much time did it take for props to design and create all of these puppets?
MYERS: I feel like we had 14 puppeteers. Part of it was Jordan Canning, our director, who we had done a lot of prep work with her the season before, literally walking through all the sets about the concept of it just as we were talking about it. We reached out to Henson as early in the process as we could because we felt like they would be the right people to do the puppet builds.
We had a kind of broad early concept of what the episode would be and we knew that it would lean on Spock. So we had a long talk with Ethan [Peck] about it. We had to rebuild the captain’s chair in order to have a puppeteer fit through it. There were a few sections that required a lot of adjustment but you’d be surprised. I mean our sets are great and are weirdly well suited towards puppeteering.
And then obviously this is about having a director who really knows and understands how this has to work and can work around the sets while designing shots in a way that feels like puppets yet gives it that feeling of “Oh they just kind of came up with it at the last minute.”
I love the scientific advantage of the puppets not needing to breathe or being able to be chopped in half and I love the ending moment with them all during their little suitless spacewalk. Were there any “we can only do this with puppets” concepts that didn’t make it into the episode?
MYERS: I feel like there were 100 things that we kept trying but weirdly everything ended up in the episode that we wanted. There were a few things that we pushed for but may or may not have made it into the final cut. Part of it I think is just that having puppets alone makes any dramatic scene funny.
Yes, the ‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Finale Is a ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Reference
“It might be a timey-wimey episode.”
Image via Jan Thijs/Paramount+
We were delighted to reveal the episode titles at Collider. I’m really curious if you can tease anything about the back half especially regarding Chronitron’s “Through the Hourglass” and finale “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.”
AKIVA GOLDSMAN: “Tomorrow’s Enterprise,” I think in a very sort of tangential way is a reference to a Next Gen title obviously. So it’s not rocket science for anybody to imagine it might be a timey-wimey episode using an adjacent genre reference.
I think what you’ll discover in the back half of the season is it’s fully equipped with all things we do. It has classic Star Trek elements found within straightforward action-adventure sci-fi storytelling while also incorporating what makes us unique—our worlds are genres—and we strive to use different genres as lenses on storytelling. As we continue deepening our characters while preparing for an inevitable conclusion we’re getting everything ready for this last season which consists ultimately of six episodes allowing us to say goodbye while honoring familiar eras.
We’ve had musicals puppets horror noir so many things how are you going to top that in your final season?
GOLDSMAN: We won’t actually! And I mean that honestly! If we top it—which I hope we will—and I believe we have—we’ll top it by doing what our cast excels at which is storytelling infused with emotion.
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds air every Thursday on Paramount+.
- Release Date
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2022 – 2027
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman
- Directors
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Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman,
Dermott Downs,
Eduardo Sánchez,
Jeffrey W. Byrd,
Jonathan Frakes,
Jordan Canning,
Leslie Hope,
Valerie Weiss,
Sydney Freeland,
Christopher J. Byrne,
Rachel Leiterman
