A Level 5 Transporter Accident turns the crew of the Enterprise into puppets — another quirky episode of Strange New Worlds has arrived

The latest episode is one fans will either adore or dislike — we argue both sides of the debate.

What is a Level 5 Transporter Accident

If you’ve not watched the episode yet, look away now. Scotty is testing a theoretical booster to the transporters. Of course, to test this he decides to use a childhood soft toy and need Mr Spock to position some buoys outside the Enterprise. Did we mention they were patrolling a sector of space for pirates? You can probably put the details together now.

The quandary with review this episodes is what context to use? Consider the episode as a stand-alone event or as part of a season of many in a show with enormous amounts of content already spread over 60 years. We’ll do both.

The episode in its own right

Yes, you guessed it, the crew has all been turned into puppets, all except Spock. Don’t believe us? Here’s the proof:

Cue lots of chaos, starting slow and getting very, very crazy. It’s not a good day for Spock. La’an just broke up with him, his search for logic needs help and ex-fiancée T’Pring is on the way to the Enterprise condition nothing strange happens. Hasn’t she watched Star Trek before?

Spock is soon spread thin as the only one able to operate most of the ship, not enough to ward off some passing Orion pirates. As the ship gets taken over, the rationale and logic behind the puppet crew gets less and less sensible. Fatal injuries can be sown back together, they can’ die in space… you get the idea. The crew decides to embrace their puppet nature as they mount a plan to get the ship back. Cue time for Spock to make it work and all ends well. He even gets to spend quality time with T’Pring before the crew has one last mad dance in space (they are puppets) during which Pelia decides in passing not to wonder why they can still talk to each other in the vacuum of space.

Plenty to like, great puppets from the Jim Henson Company (essentially making them Muppets), highly amusing and the cast seems to be having a ball, even if there’s little development for any of the crew except Spock.

Close to brilliant, perhaps a classic… if only they’d avoided the “it was all a dream” ending. Still, Spock’s subconscious obviously needs help and the episode end up just being a step in his journey towards the Original Series version.

If you’re interested in how it was made, this video is worth a watch:

As part of the season

Here the story is different. As we mentioned in our review of the recent Human Best Friend, there are too many episodes of Strange New Worlds where the cast gets to stretch their acting skills a little and show what else they can do. Season 3 was particularly noted for this, now it seems season 4 is going the same way.

Many fans are suggesting the writers are out of ideas. We think this idea has some merit and there are numerous examples of new writers to a franchise keen to leave their marks. We wonder, though, how much the threat of cancellation plays on the minds. Season 3 had a rushed conclusion for this reason. We suspect the show has a flaw. It is designed to finish before the Original Series and dovetail with it to varying degrees. We know the future for most of the crew.

We know Number One, La’an, Ortega, Pelia and Dr M’Benga leaves the ship for McCoy in the final episode of season 4 (and appears a couple of times in the Original Series). We know the people Uhura, Spock, Nurse Chapel and Scotty will be. Kirk has appeared in many episodes. We and Pike all know his future is grim. Has this paralysed the writing room?

We can’t know, but we do know the show is filling time rather than developing characters. They (Pike aside) don’t know their future, so why not write them as though that’s the case? Maybe season 5 will be full of the reasons why so many crew moves on. We shall see.

In conclusion

We failed to decide how to best judge this episode. We could make some flip comment about Schrödinger’s review, but in the end it’s this simple:

As an episode

As part of the series as a whole

Take your pick! Until next time