In fact, when it comes to the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the life forms in question are less flesh-and-blood and more fabric-and-felt – as the series becomes the latest sci-fi show to embrace the magic of puppetry. Level-Five Transporter Accident follows in a longstanding Trek tradition that sees crew members undergo unfortunate transformations while beaming up to the ship. This time, the crew suffers an even greater indignity: thanks to a spot of boldly sewing from the legendary Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the Enterprise team are reconstituted into – quite literally – a bunch of muppets.
Across nearly 1,000 episodes and 13 movies, Star Trek has always eschewed the art of puppetry – in stark contrast to its cooler, younger sibling Star Wars. Luke Skywalker’s mentor Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back was just one of many iconic puppet characters who populated the original movie trilogy. Meanwhile, despite Star Trek’s six-decade commitment ‘to seek out new life’, the franchise has remained a puppet-free zone.
The answer, it turns out, is less about the magic of puppetry and more about the tropes of modern TV production. In Strange New Worlds, Myers flipped the format on its head, keeping Ethan Peck’s Spock as flesh and (green Vulcan) blood, while forcing the rest of the Enterprise crew to become chaotic, muppety versions of themselves. Sci-fi actors must be particularly adept at playing make-believe, but according to Canning, the puppets made things easier for Peck.
You can’t help but feel connected to those characters.” Myers agrees. The fact that Gosling was reacting live in the moment is what made their relationship feel genuine.” For Dawn Dininger, one of five puppeteers who operates Grogu in The Mandalorian, it’s a double-edged sword. They never talk to us, even though we’re the ones controlling him.
They forget we’re there.” Although The Mandalorian notionally focuses on Pedro Pascal’s titular bounty hunter, it’s his puppet sidekick Grogu (AKA Baby Yoda) who steals the show – as evidenced by the not-so-subtle name-change for this year’s movie spin-off, The Mandalorian and Grogu. A puppet-fabricator by training, Dininger was unprepared for the cult status the character would almost instantly accrue. Now, when top Hollywood actors appear opposite the puppet – as Sigourney Weaver recently did – it’s the A-listers who are starstruck.
Then afterwards I asked if I could get a photo, and she was like, ‘Well, yeah. Because I need a photo with Grogu.’ She couldn’t get over him. It was really cute.” It’s a stark contrast to the Star Wars prequels of the late 1990s, which had a heavy reliance on green screen and CGI.
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