2. Captain Christopher Pike
Pike’s puppet had one job above all others: Get the hair right. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop identified the priorities plainly. Pike needed his strong shoulders and, of course, that hair. The production exaggerated both, making the puppet’s sweeping hairstyle a central part of its visual identity.
It was the right decision. Anson Mount’s Pike hair is already a defining visual trait of SNW. The puppet turns it into an event: elevated, stylized, and instantly funny without diminishing the character. Pike’s No. 2 finish also comes from how much the episode uses him.
Pike is not just another transformed crew member hanging around in the background. He has one of the story’s most memorable set pieces when the Orions threaten to eject him into space to force Spock to reveal the Enterprise’s control codes. The sequence becomes an overt homage to the farewell between Kirk and Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Pike puts his tiny puppet hand against the glass while Spock responds with a Vulcan salute, just before Pike is launched into space. It is emotionally sincere, wildly silly, and wonderfully wrong in the way only a puppet episode can make it.
Pike’s puppet is the design that best combines immediate visual comedy with genuine Star Trek feeling. It has the hair, the command presence, the absurd spacewalk logic, and one of the episode’s most memorable emotional beats. Only one puppet can beat it.
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