Actually strike that – five quick bites before a rest. Spoilers.
914: Skin a Cat: OK, a one joke thing. But there is a good point underneath it – Star Trek is very human-centric at the best of times. And everyone should just be happy with Australia.
915: Holiday Party: Some great animation of the Strange New Worlds crew. It’s a silly set up, but it is actually based on a real character observation.
916: Worst Contact: And now animated TNG crew. Some very human-centric views of what’s gross. I mean, what is honey really.
917: Holograms All the Way Down: Can I sue for emotional distress because of the whole ‘reference to the end of Enterprise’. Enterprise, TNG, Lower Decks, Prodigy, TOS, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and then Voyager. Nicely done sequence.
918: Walk, Don’t Run: It’s a pity that they didn’t redo the Lower Decks animation style, would have been a nice joke. Otherwise, it’s just a bit too meta for me. Fun song though.
It’s unfair to grade this in the same way as seasons of Star Trek, even Short Treks. It’s really a collection of a few one-shot jokes. It is nice to see the OG Animated Series get some love – it’s far better than most people remember. I mean, not good. But better than most animation at the time.
If I was grading against execution this would get high marks – the animation is immaculate, and it’s great to see the adaptation of different crews to the style. It’s a pity they didn’t do the same for Lower Decks and Prodigy, but that’s perhaps understandable. The voice acting is all strong, and the jokes are mostly pretty well constructed.
But my aim is to rate Star Trek series ultimately against two metrics – how impactful was it, and how much do I want to see it again. On this, it’s hard to argue that this is anything other than a very low placed entry. I’ll be kind and put it in the second bracket from the bottom, mainly because of the execution.
The very best of Trek (top 7):
- SNW Season 1
- PIC Season 3
- PIC Season 1
- SNW Season 2
- TNG Season 6
- DS9 Season 2
- PIC Season 2
Strong performers (next 10):
- PRO Season 1
- LD Season 1
- DS9 Season 5
- TNG Season 3
- TNG Season 5
- TOS Season 2
- DIS Season 2
- ENT Season 3
- TNG Season 4
- VOY Season 4
Mixed bag (middle 15):
- TOS Season 1
- DS9 Season 4
- LD Season 3
- LD Season 2
- DIS Season 1
- LD Season 4
- ST Season 2
- DS9 Season 1
- ENT Season 4
- DIS Season 3
- ST Season 1
- VOY Season 5
- ENT Season 1
- VOY Season 1
- TNG Season 7
Not good (second worst 9):
- DS9 Season 3
- DS9 Season 6
- DIS Season 4
- VOY Season 6
- VOY Season 3
- TNG Season 2
- ENT Season 2
- TAS Season 1
- VST Season 1
Really just awful (the bottom 6):
- VOY Season 7
- VOY Season 2
- DS9 Season 7
- TOS Season 3
- TAS Season 2
- TNG Season 1
47 seasons down. And now actually time for a rest.