Rob Reviews Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 4.5 “Level-Five Transporter Accident“

After hearing about it for nearly two years, the Muppet episode is finally here!

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⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t watched Season 4, Episode 5 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds yet, turn back now! This review breaks down the entire episode, plot twists, the sight gags, and major spoilers from start to finish.

The Enterprise is en route to Vulcan when they get sidetracked by pirate activity in the area. Scotty is tinkering with the transporter, hoping to set a new record for the longest distance ever transported, fueled by a rivalry with an engineer on another starship. His plan? To send a ventriloquist dummy. Enter our MacGuffin.

Meanwhile, La’An cancels a dance session with Spock—and it’s more than just a cancellation; she’s breaking up with him. Could this be what drives Spock back to fully embracing the Vulcan philosophy? We see him meditating again and speaking with T’Pring, who agrees to help Spock on the condition of “no hijinks” during her visit. (Apparently, T’Pring forgot which show she’s appearing on.)

Spock is on a shuttlecraft assisting Scotty with the transporter experiment, and if you’ve ever watched Star Trek before, you know transporter experiments never end well.

Something goes wrong with the beam. It looks as though everybody and the Enterprise momentarily “beam” in and out—and the ship itself appears to be beamed. Spock returns to the Enterprise to find the ship’s complement has become… puppets.

The characters maintain their regular voices, with the regular actors voicing the characters as puppets.
You can’t help but notice a slight change in the delivery of each puppet character—they’re talking a bit more like Muppets and don’t quite sound like themselves. I noticed this particularly with Number One.
The senior staff meets to discuss the situation, but they aren’t able to conduct regular ship functions while in puppet form, leaving Spock to literally run the ship himself. He is stressing under the enormous burden.

The Enterprise encounters an Orion ship. They try to avoid contact, but the Orions get visual and see most of the crew in their puppet state. Can I just say there is nothing funnier than seeing puppets “starship acting,” the way the actors would rock from side to side simulating battle damage to the ship?

The Orions board the ship and stun Spock.

Production Note: Kudos to Ethan Peck (Spock) for acting alongside puppets for essentially the entire episode! Rebecca Romijn seems to be channeling her inner Miss Piggy. Honestly, of all the actors, she’s hamming it up and embracing the Muppet aspects of her character the most—you can practically see her bobbing her head in the recording studio as she lays down her vocals.

The Orion first officer has an interesting conversation with Spock, and we learn more about the Orion hierarchy. Eventually, the Orions throw Pike out of an airlock, hoping to persuade Spock to cooperate, leading to Spock delivering the iconic “needs of the many” scene from The Wrath of Khan.

Pike convinces the crew to use their unique situation to their advantage—after all, they are puppets, not regular humans. With Spock’s help, they are ultimately able to retake the ship. After retaking the vessel, most of the Enterprise crew takes part in an untethered spacewalk. Somehow, they’re still able to talk in space.

Back in Spock’s quarters, T’Pring explains to him that the entire situation was a dream he experienced while unconscious following the transporter experiment. None of the crew members were ever actually turned into puppets at all.

My take

“Scotty turned us into puppets. Absurdity is kind of baked into the premise,” Ortegas says, shattering the fourth wall.

This is an episode that refuses to take itself too seriously. Hard-core Star Trek fans might get triggered because there are already so few episodes of Strange New Worlds each season. But this is probably some of the best visual comedy Star Trek has ever done. And of course, the best part for the purists is that the entire puppet escapade was just a dream Spock experienced while unconscious during the shuttle transporter experiment.

Final verdict

“Level-Five Transporter Accident” is absurd. As I mentioned, it’s probably the best visual comedy we’ve ever seen in the 60-year run of the franchise. The episode completely obliterates the fourth wall in the process of storytelling.

If you are a fan of the Muppets, you will enjoy this. Likewise, if you are a fan of Star Trek not taking itself too seriously every now and then, you’ll have a blast. It is definitely not your run-of-the-mill planet-of-the-week, contemporary-social-issue-thinly-disguised-as-interplanetary-concern episode.

If you can lighten up and not take it too seriously, you’re going to have fun. Otherwise, skip this one.

Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Having crossed the 1,000-day milestone, I’m now charting the territory beyond. The mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.

Today’s post is inspired by the WordPress Daily Prompt. While I’ve taken the topic in my own direction for the Road beyond 1,000 Days, you can find more responses to today’s prompt HERE.

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