Coming in at only 22 episodes, there’s a largely forgottenStar Trekshow that Rotten Tomatoes ranks as the franchise’s 3rd best. Throughout its nearly 60 years as a sci-fi franchise,11Star Trekshowshave defined and expanded series creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a hopeful future. While every fan will understandably have their own personal favorites,Star Trekfandom tends to agree that certainStar Trekshows 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 scoredrawn from a range of sources. Curiously,Rotten Tomatoes’Star Trekrankingsplace both franchise-definingStar Trek: The Next Generationand fan-favoriteStar Trek: Deep Space Nineseveral places below otherStar Trekseries, and one often-skippedStar Trekseries 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, the3rd highest-ratedStar Trekshow on Rotten Tomatoes isStar Trek: The Animated Series,with a critics' score of 94% and an audience score of 81%.Star Trek: The Animated SeriescontinuedStar Trek: The Original Series' 5-year mission with 22 episodes running from 1973 to 1974 on NBC. MostStar Trek: The Original Seriescast membersreturned to voice their animated counterparts, missing only Walter Koenig’s Ensign Pavel Chekov. The potential to makeStar Trek’s animated spin-off as good as the original was there, butStar Trek: The Animated Serieswas aimed at younger viewers and is often forgotten by fans.
98%
21
79%
97%
24
88%
94%
18
81%
92%
77
90%
83
73%
91%
65
89%
38
57%
84%
46
34%
80%
42
76%
56
56%
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 Seriesis rated at 94% because out of 18 available reviews, only one was"certified rotten". Compare that to the 77 available reviews forStar Trek: The Next Generation, with six"rotten"ratings and 71"fresh"ones.The higher score doesn’t necessarily mean thatStar Trek: The Animated Seriesis better thanTNG— 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 Seriesisn’t really as good as its Rotten Tomatoes score would imply.Star Trek: The Animated Seriesis definitely a Saturday morning cartoon version ofStar Trek,with some of the most thoughtful aspects ofThe Original Seriesboiled down into easily-digestible, kid-friendly episodes. The animation is stilted, and the stories are simplistic and fanciful compared toStar Trek: The Original Series— even bearing in mind thatTOSgets pretty silly sometimes.
If you watch only one episode ofTAS, make itStar Trek: The Animated Seriesseason 1, episode 2, “Yesteryear”, a Spock-centricStar Trektime travel story that’s a series highlight.
At the risk of sounding contrary,Star Trek: The Animated Seriesisn’t total trash, either.TAScontributed a lot to theTrekuniverse, soStar Trek: The Animated Seriescould be worth watching if you’re aStar Trekcompletionist or unbothered by dated animation.Other fans might findTASa slog, especially compared to modernStar Trekanimated showslike the snappyStar Trek: Lower Decksor sophisticatedStar Trek: Prodigy.Star Trek: The Animated Seriesis hardly the 3rd bestStar Trekshow, so Rotten Tomatoes’Star Trekranking is weird. Blame the math.
