Star Trek Officially Goes Full Muppets in New ‘Strange New Worlds’ Episode [Exclusive]

By Samantha Coley Published Aug 20, 2026, 4:00 AM EDT Sam is a News Editor for Collider and a known lover of all things sci-fi and horror. She spends her days editing news stories, coodrinating exclusives, and working closely with writers to deliver their best work. When she's not editing the daily news, she can be found hanging out with her wife (they're probably rewatching Ghosts for the millionth time), tweeting about romance, and cooking something delicious while belting to Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter 's latest hits at the top of her lungs. Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google News Summary Generate a summary of this story Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Listen Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview contains spoilers for 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 4, Episode 5, "Level-Five Transporter Accident."

Strange New Worlds has officially delivered one of the most delightfully unusual Star Trek episodes of the entire franchise with Season 4, Episode 5, "Level-Five Transporter Accident." The episode was first teased at SDCC 2025 , as the creative team revealed that the series would officially be doing a "Puppet" episode in its then-distant fourth season. The episode goes full Muppets , with incredibly designed puppets from the Jim Henson Company , plenty of physical comedy, and even a touch of romance.

Ahead of the season, I sat down with co-showrunners Henry Alonso Meyers and Akiva Goldsman to discuss this long-awaited episode, which Meyers co-wrote with Dana Horgan . During our conversation, Meyers revealed that the episode required hours upon hours of planning, new builds for the bridge set, and 14 dedicated puppeteers bringing the crew of the Enterprise to life. Meanwhile, Goldsman teased a "timey-wimey" adventure for the Season 4 finale , "Tomorrow's Enterprise," which references the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Yesterday's Enterprise." He also spoke about the six-episode final season expected to air next year and promised to go out on an emotional note. You can watch the interview in the player above or read the full transcript of our conversation below.

(L-R): Gia Sandhu as T'Pring, Anson Mount as Captain Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Una, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga, and Ethan Peck as Spock in season 4, episode 5, of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+ Image via Jan Thijs/Paramount+ COLLIDER: My favorite episodes each season are always the ones where you guys take full advantage of the premise that anything can happen in space. Henry, I know you co-wrote this one with Dana Horgan. How did the concept for this puppet episode come about, and what was the most exciting part of pushing beyond our expectations for this episode?

HENRY ALONSO MYERS: We had been talking about doing a puppet episode for a long time, and we felt that, much like we did with the musical, that in order to do it, we couldn't just half do it. We couldn't just do a sort of slight version of it. We really needed to rise up and try to make the best possible version of it.

Then the other thing that we really needed to do was make sure that it felt like a Star Trek episode distinctly, specifically, and in all of the story. The transporter accident kind of ended up being the t…