The Best Star Trek TV Series, According To Rotten Tomatoes

“Star Trek: Discovery” was, back in 2017, met with a great deal of suspicion. “Discovery” turned “Star Trek” from an episodic enterprise into season-long stories full of bleak violence, unending incident, and many, many deaths. It wasn’t quite in the spirit of “Star Trek,” and many old school Trekkies rejected it. In an attempt to get said Trekkies hooked on the show, the showrunners rushed in the familiar U.S.S. Enterprise. Many saw it as a lazy ratings-grab, but the conceit actually worked. Pike was a welcome addition, and all the kinks of a potential “Strange New Worlds” first season were handily smoothed out. By the time “Worlds” debuted (as an episodic series), audiences were ready and the showrunners knew what they had. In a way, “Strange New Worlds” bypassed the notorious first-season jitters. 

The second highest-rated “Star Trek” series on Rotten Tomatoes is, perhaps bafflingly, “Star Trek: The Animated Series” from 1973. While Filmation’s animation on that series was stodgy, the writing was better than on the original “Star Trek.” It also helped that the show was only 30 minutes per episode, allowing the sci-fi conceits to shine outside the pesky character work. It’s a better series than it gets credit for, and critics agree. 

Third highest rated on Rotten Tomatoes is another animated “Star Trek” series, “Star Trek: Prodigy,” an ambitious series about teenagers from across the galaxy who learn about Starfleet for the first time when they discover an abandoned ship called the Protostar. They get involved in a long-range chase with an evil villain, and become gentle, mature officers with the help of an instructional hologram of Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). 

Fourth-highest on the list is the animate “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” a comedy series set after the events of “Star Trek: Voyager,” set on the U.S.S. Cerritos, a really crappy ship tasked with the Federation’s most boring missions. It seems that critics love “Star Trek” when it’s animated. 

Fifth on the list is “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” sixth is “Deep Space Nine,” seventh is the mostly-abysmal “Picard” (!), eighth is “Discovery,” ninth is the original series (!!), and tenth is “Voyager.” The only “Star Trek” show to get a “rotten” rating, with 56% approval, is “Star Trek: Enterprise.”