“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is boldly going where no “Star Trek” show has gone before: to the world of puppets.
At the “Star Trek Universe” panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the cast and executive producers of “Strange New Worlds” debuted a teaser for the fourth season of the series, which just finished production. It revealed Capt. Christopher Pike sitting on the captain’s chair of the Enterprise — but as a puppet.
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“There might have been an unexpected and terrible transporter accident,” said executive producer Akiva Goldsman on the stage at Hall H. “Which might have had some unexpected felt-like effects.”
The puppets were created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop for the episode, which is directed by Jordan Canning (“Fragile Rock: Back to the Rock”). It’s in keeping with the “Strange New Worlds” approach of treating each episode as its own unique genre, including horror, screwball comedy, costume fantasy and even a musical episode and a crossover episode with the animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks.”
In a 2024 Variety cover story on the future of “Star Trek,” Goldsman even teased the puppet episode. “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure-handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman said when asked if there was a genre the show couldn’t handle. “Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!”
Stars Ethan Peck, Rebecca Romijn, Jess Bush, Paul Wesley and Christina Chong were joined by executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Henry Alonso Myers and Goldsman on the stage at Hall H. (Mount wasn’t able to attend because his wife had just had a baby.) Goldsman addressed the announcement that “Strange New Worlds” will be concluding with its fifth season, noting that their plan is to take the series up to the first day Capt. James Kirk (Wesley) takes command of the Enterprise. Then he asked fans to write to Paramount (and its new parent company) Skydance so they can make “Star Trek: Year One” — set during the classic original series time period of the franchise.
To further underline the show’s genre-hopping, the next episode of “Strange New Worlds,” a period murder mystery entitled “A Space Adventure Hour” played in its entirety to the audience at Comic-Con.
Google TV is the presenting sponsor of the Comic-Con Variety Studio.
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