Star Trek's Doing A Puppet Episode - Strange New Worlds Season 4 Teaser
Frown Time. Trekkie reactions to next season's early teaser were mixed.
Things got off to an odd start in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) for this year's Star Trek Universe panel. Robert Picardo, moderator, was misnamed as "Richard" on his card. Then, fans in the room got a surprise in the form of puppets — one puppet in particular, of Captain Pike. The operative is 'strange' in Strange New Worlds.
It was a teaser of a different kind, a "sneak peek" for season four before we're even half way through season three. "Pike's hanging on by a thread," says the blurb beneath the 48-second long clip, now on YouTube. Well, don't draw any hasty comparisons! Suitably quiffed, Pike as puppet is certainly a striking image as the camera swivels around his captain's chair, Alexander Courage on full blast. "Hit it!" he notes. What else?!
Not just one puppet, this is the puppet episode, set for 2026. "Is there a genre that Strange New Worlds can't do?" asked Variety back in 2024. "I'm not sure there is," replied executive producer Akiva Goldsman. "Could it do Muppets? Sure." We'll have to wait and see what the rationale for this one is. The saving grace in advance is that Pike and other puppets for the episode were designed and made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
If you are experiencing a Yogi Berra sense of "déjà vu all over again" after Once More, with Feeling switched vampires for Klingons to become Subspace Rhapsody, then it's because Buffy spin-off Angel did its puppet episode Smile Time back in 2004. Not quite in the same style, but Stargate SG-1 also did meta-marionettes à la Team America in 2006.
And as if all that felt and foam weren't meta enough, the SDCC surprise 'sneak peek' contains a fourth wall shattering quasi-post credits scene. "Did you get to season four without me?" puppet Pike asks. Don't hang a lantern on any hasty conclusions! Fan reaction online has been mixed. We'll reserve complete judgement until we've seen the entire episode. This could be the best thing ever put to puppetry, but then again, it could be one genre experiment too far. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Hall H got one last Strange New… surprise — an early showing of this Thursday's episode A Space Adventure Hour, the eagerly awaited 'murder mystery' directed by Jonathan Frakes. (Combine it with puppets and you'll get that one with Melissa McCarthy!)
"La'an tests a prototype holodeck with a fictional case only she can solve," gives the official synopsis for A Space Adventure Hour on StarTrek.com. We've already had the Rec Room in Star Trek: The Animated Series, so that's not much of a problem in need of a solution. There was even a pop-up holodeck-themed experience at the 'Paramount+ Lodge' at SDCC this year. Almost like they planned it!
As for the rest, let's hope it's not just one big practical joke. Season five will be the last for Strange New Worlds, already shortened in number of episodes. Genre-hopping is at the core of Star Trek, but only if there's a good story to tell. We don't want to reach the end to realise we've all been taken for a bunch of muppets…
