Every season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has an episode that puts the stoic half-Vulcan Spock (Ethan Peck) at the center of some ridiculous hijinks. In the season 2 episode “Charades” (directed by Jordan Canning) Spock is transformed into a human, and in season 3’s “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” he has to deal with many of his human crewmates becoming Vulcans. But Canning took Spock on his most absurd adventure yet in the season 4 episode “Level Five Transporter Accident.”
This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 5.
When Enterprise engineer Montgomery Scott tries to show up a Starfleet Academy rival by transporting a puppet a great distance through space, he accidentally winds up turning himself and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise into puppets. Spock isn't on board at the time, so he is unaffected and has to desperately try to protect the Enterprise until Scotty can fix his mistake.
“The Strange New Worlds crew just dove in with open minds and open hearts for this very different process,” Canning told Polygon in a video interview. “Like with all the amazing genre swings they do, the characters stay grounded. The world stays real and grounded despite what sort of insane things are happening within it that week.”
Canning was the ideal director for the job. Beyond working on some of Strange New Worlds’ funniest episodes, she also directed two seasons of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, Apple TV’s reboot of Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock. Almost the entire puppeteer crew from Fraggle Rock joined her for “Level Five Transporter Accident,” which also used puppets designed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Canning used her experience to help Dana Horgan and Henry Alonso Myers write the episode script.
“They embraced all of this stuff that puppets are kind of bad at, like holding certain things or really dextrous hand movements,” Canning said. “They built that into the storyline, which I think was so brilliant. We're not pretending that they're not puppets. They are aware that they’re puppets. What comes along with that is the pros and cons of being puppets.”
Chaos is truly what puppets do best.
The puppets are unable to use most of the Enterprise's controls, meaning Spock is the only one who can fly the ship and fire weapons. When Orion pirates realize how vulnerable the Federation’s flagship is, they attack, leading to a series of scenes where puppets are tossed around the ship, have to run away from sliding medical equipment, and catch bottles flying around the Enterprise’s bar.
“Chaos is truly what puppets do best,” Canning said. “I say this with all the love in my heart: With puppets, the dumber the better. How can we make this sillier, bigger, and more chaotic?”
Rachael Harris (Lucifer, Suits) plays the Orion captain, while Joe Lo Truglio (Brooklyn Nine Nine) is her very subservient second-in-command. They wind up in a surprising number of puppet fight scenes, slicing through stuffing with a sword, trying to torture Spock’s ex-fiance T’Pring (Gia Sandhu) by singeing her fabric, and blasting a hole in an ensign’s chest.
“It was amazing getting to just throw these little puppets around,” Harris said. “It was actually hard to be mean to them.”
As bizarre as the conflicts are, they feel real to Spock. In a bid to get Spock to disclose the codes they’d need to take full control of the Enterprise, the pirates toss the puppet version of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) out the airlock. Spock presses his hand to the glass separating them in a Vulcan salute as Pike begins to deliver the line “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” that Spock would say in the iconic scene of self-sacrifice in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.
“There were so many takes I probably ruined because I was laughing,” Canning said. “Ethan’s little mouth just kind of popping open like a little fish just killed me. What makes this episode work so well is how grounded Ethan is throughout. All this bedlam is going on around him and he just feels so real and anchored in it.”
Lo Truglio spends most of the episode distracting and interrogating Spock by getting very personal, discussing Spock’s complicated relationship with T’Pring.
“Ethan is such a terrific guy and a great actor that it was very easy to act with him on a more serious level and insert some moments of lightness in,” Lo Truglio said. “He was super thoughtful and sweet to both Rachael and I. He was always saying ‘You guys are so funny but I can’t laugh. I can’t react to you guys. I’m Spock. But just know that you guys are doing great and we’re so happy you’re here.’”
Most scenes in Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock involve only puppets, but filming puppets and human actors together in the same sightline provided numerous challenges. Early in the episode, Pike gets a luxurious new captain’s chair. The plot was devised so they could introduce a piece of furniture a puppeteer could fit in. Holes were punched in many of the set’s chairs and couches to hide other puppeteers.
“The puppeteers were all working off the floor, and so they were crammed under consoles and sliding around on dollies flat on their back,” Canning said. “The puppeteers will cram themselves into any little corner to make something work.”
The first five episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 are available to stream on Paramount Plus. New episodes release weekly on Thursday through Sept. 24.