Spock faces his most illogical challenge yet when a transporter accident turns the Enterprise crew into puppets in this wildly funny and surprisingly heartfelt episode.
Spock faces the most illogical situation of his life when his crewmates are turned into puppets.
The Enterprise is on her way to Vulcan, where Spock (Ethan Peck) hopes to re-center himself after his anxiety-producing misadventure in “The Griffin Incident.” It doesn’t help his personal struggle that La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) breaks up with him due to her own concerning developments in recent episodes.
As the ship makes its way slowly through an area of space known to house Orion pirates, Spock helps Scotty (Martin Quinn) in an engineering side project: breaking the record for farthest transport. The engineer hopes to beat the record for farthest transport, the subject of which is a puppet he has had since childhood. It’s in this wayward experiment that the entire crew of the Enterprise sans Spock is transformed into… puppets.
Beyond Logic
It’s absurd, for sure. So absurd that in the interests of self-protection, we dialed our expectations way back when we started watching this episode. We really didn’t know what to expect. We did the same when we started watching “Subspace Rhapsody,” the first-ever Star Trek musical. But like that season two episode, “Level-Five Transporter Accident” turns out to be whimsical, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, chuckle-inducing escapism that serves an important purpose for the development of everyone’s favorite Vulcan.
The episode’s absurdity is etched into Spock’s face as the Vulcan realizes what happens to his crewmates — a funny situation made dire since none of the puppets can perform their duties, leaving Spock to hustle around the ship. He actually is quite emotionally impacted by this situation, leaving his ex-fiance, T’Pring (Gia Sandhu), to settle him emotionally despite herself being a puppet. On that note, we got a particularly hearty laugh when T’Pring tells Spock she is coming aboard Enterprise and she doesn’t want any hijinks this time, but she ends up turning into a puppet.
“A level-five transporter accident? I’ve never even heard that before.”
“You’ve never heard of a whole crew being turned into puppets, either, Bob!”
– Admiral Robert April (Adrian Holmes) and Captain Pike.
The situation turns a little more serious when Orion pirates show up and board the Enterprise looking for an easy score. The puppet crew can’t really do anything against the invaders, try as they might, and Spock quickly falls captive to the Orion captain, Trull (Rachel Harris), and her henchman while the main cast retreats to the spacious quarters of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). While Trull tries to get the command codes from Spock, Pike vows to rescue his first officer, as the Vulcan is the only way the puppets have a chance to fight off the invaders. But, the captain’s plan goes awry when the Orions throw him out the airlock, much to Spock’s shock.
Hardcore Star Trek fans will recognize this short but impactful goodbye between Pike and Spock as reminiscent of Kirk and Spock’s goodbye in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Both men in both situations are physically separated, and both share the Vulcan salute and the parting words “The needs of the many…” It’s an interesting choice for “Level-Five Transporter Accident” to invoke the sacred Spock death scene from Star Trek II, and we think this drives home the point that Pike is an extremely important figure in Spock’s life, even in puppet form.
No one is sad for too long, though, because the spaced Pike realizes something important — he’s a puppet, and therefore he can’t really be hurt; indeed, surviving in space is a peaceful moment for him before he returns to the ship to plan a way to send the Orions packing. When he returns to the rest of Alpha Shift, they change their tactics. Instead of fighting like humans, they embrace the absurdity of their new puppet existence. As T’Pring says when she rescues Spock from captivity, “These hijinks are not the obstacle… they are the solution.”
The puppet fighting force arrives on the bridge and overwhelms the invaders, and Spock seals the deal by depleting the bridge of oxygen, since the puppets don’t need it and the Orions do. After he passes out, Spock awakens in sickbay to learn Scotty has figured out how to turn the crew back to humans… but not before they enjoy frolicking in space as invincible puppets. For his part, Spock looks forward to resuming a life of logic.
Suddenly, Spock wakes up again, but this time he is in his quarters with a humanoid T’Pring at his bedside. Turns out, Spock dreamed the whole puppet scenario after Scotty’s transporter test knocked him out. Since there’s no possible way a Starfleet crew turning into puppets can survive being in canon, this was a sensible solution — and it also makes it useless to issue our normal critiques of an episode, since it was all a dream anyway. No Stray Thoughts this week, folks.
No Strings Attached
It was important for us that “Level-Five Transporter Accident” used its absurdity in the name of imparting a life lesson or moving character development along or some other profound purpose. We were happy with “Subspace Rhapsody,” after all, because that episode spoke to the profound, immutable entanglement between music and human emotion. “Level-Five Transporter Accident” uses its ridiculous puppet premise as a vehicle for Spock to explore how to handle intense anxiety and illogic, and his vivid dream may very well inform his continuing character development.
“Scotty turned us into puppets. Absurdity is kind of baked into the premise.”
– Erica Ortegas, as the writers are perhaps being a bit self-referential.
Beyond the substance of the episode, we were nicely surprised how funny this installment was — although it shouldn’t have been that surprising considering Jordan Canning was in the director’s chair, as she was for previous Strange New Worlds comedy episodes. The Orions accidentally seeing the puppet bridge crew, the puppets running around during the attack on the Enterprise, the impromptu counseling session between Spock and an Orion, or the normally stoic Spock subtly reacting to the craziness around him — it’s all fun stuff.
We appreciate the ambitious, creative swings that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to take. While the core premise of “Level-Five Transporter Accident” is unapologetically absurd and may push the boundaries of tolerance for certain long-time Star Trek purists, it carries a genuine emotional core and delightful whimsy. For many viewers, this inventive and lighthearted chapter will undoubtedly stand out as a personal favorite Star Trek episode, serving as an accessible, highly entertaining entry point for newcomers discovering the broader franchise for the first time.
New episodes of Strange New Worlds stream Thursdays on Paramount+.
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