1. Commander Pelia
Pelia was born to be a puppet. Carol Kane’s eccentric engineer is already operating at a delightful angle from the rest of the Enterprise crew. Pelia is ancient, brilliant, unbothered by conventional Starfleet decorum, and prone to delivering every line as if she has personally witnessed several centuries’ worth of nonsense and plans to enjoy this latest example.
Turning that character into a puppet does not reduce her. It somehow makes her more Pelia. The hair is the key. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop used synthetic horsehair tubing that was placed around a spiral form and boiled to hold its curl, specifically to recreate Pelia’s extravagant curls.
Unlike the other designs, puppet Pelia feels like a natural extension of the character. Her hair, proportions, and animated presence feel less like exaggerations than the form Pelia might have chosen for herself. She also fits the episode’s puppet logic better than anyone.
When the Orion captain slices Pelia in half, the sequence does not turn tragic. It turns even more Pelia. She can be sewn back together, remain full of stuffing, and keep talking as if this is just one more minor inconvenience in an extraordinarily long life.
That is why Pelia takes the top spot. Pike may have the biggest hair joke. T’Pring may have the funniest contrast between character and format. La’an and Una may best retain their authority in miniature.
But Pelia is the one puppet whose entire design, personality, and comic potential feel perfectly aligned. She does not merely survive the move to felt and stuffing. She becomes the episode’s ultimate proof that Strange New Worlds can turn almost any idea into Star Trek, as long as it commits completely to the bit.
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