“It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to meet The Muppets” on Strange New Worlds tonight! Okay, I don’t know if Star Trek: SNW’s season 4’s puppet episode will go as far as using The Muppet Show theme song, but showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman certainly said it was “a delight” making that story come to life, according to a new interview with Polygon.
However, the Strange New Worlds episode featuring a transporter accident which causes the Muppet makeover wasn’t easy to pull off. Kurtzman said during the same sit-down: “It is more work than any episode that we have done. 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.”
For those not familiar with the upcoming puppet episode of Strange New Worlds, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is the company behind the creative minds who transformed Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) into a Muppet-style commander of the USS Enterprise. Check out the 2025 San Diego Comic-Con "Surprise" video below:
And according to Goldsman, “If you go to work on Star Trek, the odds are it's one of your favorite things […] That’s been so true for so many folks that we've gotten a chance to work with, and boy was it true for the folks who were the puppeteers. It was moving and profound.”
Personally, I’m a fan of The Muppets, so I am interested to see what the Strange New Worlds’ showrunners actually pulled off with this Pike puppet episode. I also wonder if Star Trek fans will get to see puppet versions of any other Enterprise crew members.
Lastly, I know this experimental episode also feels a lot like some of the oddball SNW entries, including “Subspace Rhapsody” and “A Space Adventure Hour,” which I know many in the fandom were not thrilled with.
What do you think? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the upcoming puppets episode of Star Trek via the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages. And Strange New Worlds season 4 debuts Thursday, July 23, on Paramount+.
Live long and prosper, Trekkies!
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