Star Trek's Forgotten Show With Only 22 Episodes Is The Franchise's 3rd Best (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

Coming in at only 22 episodes, there's a largely forgotten Star Trek show that Rotten Tomatoes ranks as the franchise's 3rd best. Throughout its nearly 60 years as a sci-fi franchise, 11 Star Trek shows have defined and expanded series creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of a hopeful future. While every fan will understandably have their own personal favorites, Star Trek fandom tends to agree that certain Star Trek shows should be ranked higher than others. Star Trek: The Next Generation, for example, is generally agreed upon as one of the best of the franchise.

Rotten Tomatoes scores media out of 100%, granting ratings according to both professional critics' reviews and the site's own audience scores. Rotten Tomatoes' critical scores use good ("certified fresh") and bad ("rotten") reviews to calculate an average score drawn from a range of sources. Curiously, Rotten Tomatoes' Star Trek rankings place both franchise-defining Star Trek: The Next Generation and fan-favorite Star Trek: Deep Space Nine several places below other Star Trek series, and one often-skipped Star Trek series near the top.

Star Trek: The Animated Series Is The Franchise's 3rd Highest-Rated Show On Rotten Tomatoes

You Can Blame Math For Star Trek: The Animated Series' Weird Rotten Tomatoes Ranking

Surprisingly, the 3rd highest-rated Star Trek show on Rotten Tomatoes is Star Trek: The Animated Series, with a critics' score of 94% and an audience score of 81%. Star Trek: The Animated Series continued Star Trek: The Original Series' 5-year mission with 22 episodes running from 1973 to 1974 on NBC. Most Star Trek: The Original Series cast members returned to voice their animated counterparts, missing only Walter Koenig's Ensign Pavel Chekov. The potential to make Star Trek's animated spin-off as good as the original was there, but Star Trek: The Animated Series was aimed at younger viewers and is often forgotten by fans.

It's important to remember that a series' overall percentage rating on Rotten Tomatoes depends on how many reviews are available for that series, and how many are positive or negative. Star Trek: The Animated Series is rated at 94% because out of 18 available reviews, only one was "certified rotten". Compare that to the 77 available reviews for Star Trek: The Next Generation, with six "rotten" ratings and 71 "fresh" ones. The higher score doesn't necessarily mean that Star Trek: The Animated Series is better than TNG — just that its ratio of positive reviews is higher.

Is Star Trek: The Animated Series Really That Good?

Star Trek: The Animated Series Is A Product Of Its Time

Despite a few bright spots and the inclusion of the original cast, Star Trek: The Animated Series isn't really as good as its Rotten Tomatoes score would imply. Star Trek: The Animated Series is definitely a Saturday morning cartoon version of Star Trek, with some of the most thoughtful aspects of The Original Series boiled down into easily-digestible, kid-friendly episodes. The animation is stilted, and the stories are simplistic and fanciful compared to Star Trek: The Original Series — even bearing in mind that TOS gets pretty silly sometimes.

At the risk of sounding contrary, Star Trek: The Animated Series isn't total trash, either. TAS contributed a lot to the Trek universe, so Star Trek: The Animated Series could be worth watching if you're a Star Trek completionist or unbothered by dated animation. Other fans might find TAS a slog, especially compared to modern Star Trek animated shows like the snappy Star Trek: Lower Decks or sophisticated Star Trek: Prodigy. Star Trek: The Animated Series is hardly the 3rd best Star Trek show, so Rotten Tomatoes' Star Trek ranking is weird. Blame the math.