Star Trek’s Next Episode Sets a Daring 60-Year First
Brace for a first in the final frontier: Star Trek will debut an episode in a never-before-tried format that Alex Kurtzman says was the most labor-intensive in the franchise’s history.
Well, they finally found a new way to surprise us. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is about to do something the franchise has literally never done in almost 60 years: go full puppet. Yes, Pike gets Muppeted. Not a drill.
So what is this and when do we see it?
Strange New Worlds Season 4 hits Paramount+ on July 23, and the first-ever Star Trek puppet episode drops a few weeks later on August 20. If you remember that production photo floating around last year of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) as a felt-and-foam version of himself, that was the tease. This is the payoff.
Why puppets? How?
Plot details are mostly locked in a photon torpedo casing, but here’s the gist the producers are willing to say out loud: Pike gets caught in an unexpected and, in their words, terrible transporter accident that leaves him looking like a puppet. Whether other characters get the same treatment is being kept quiet for now.
The team making it real (and fuzzy)
Behind the scenes, Star Trek called in the experts. The puppets are by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and the episode is directed by Jordan Canning, who most recently worked on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. According to executive producer Akiva Goldsman, the Henson crew showed up as massive Trek fans and took this very personally in the best way. He describes their enthusiasm as genuinely moving.
Why this one was a beast to make
Alex Kurtzman, who has been steering the modern Trek TV era and has already overseen everything from big VFX blowouts to a musical, says this puppet hour was the toughest yet. In his words:
"It’s more work than the animated one. It’s more work than the musical. It’s more work than a giant VFX episode. It’s a lot of prep. It’s a lot of work on the day. It’s a lot of post."
Coming from the guy who helped launch this whole streaming run of Trek in the early 2020s, that’s saying something.
What we know so far
- Strange New Worlds Season 4 premieres July 23 on Paramount+.
- The franchise’s first-ever puppet episode airs August 20.
- Pike (Anson Mount) becomes a puppet after a transporter mishap; other character transformations are unconfirmed.
- Jim Henson’s Creature Shop built the puppets.
- Jordan Canning (Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock) directs.
- Alex Kurtzman calls it the most work of any episode they have done, harder than their animated, musical, or VFX-heavy installments.
Star Trek has tried almost every kind of special episode over the decades, but this is a new flavor. It’s weird, it’s ambitious, and with Henson involved, it might also be oddly beautiful. I’m in.