After finishing the first season of Star Trek: Prodigy, I’m here to rank every Star Trek TV series in descending order. Granted, there’s a small sample size for some of the shows, but still. Are you excited? You should be:
11. LOWER DECKS
In the category of things the world doesn’t need: A raunchy animated Star Trek comedy show. No, thank you. (Three seasons and counting. Please make it stop.)
10. THE ANIMATED SERIES
Haven’t watched it, don’t plan to. I’m sure it’s fine for what it is, but it’s never appealed to me. (Two seasons.)
9. ENTERPRISE
I’m probably the only person alive who actually likes the theme song. The show itself? Not so much. (Four seasons.)
8. DISCOVERY
Too dark, too loud, too fast, too preachy, too much crying. (Four seasons and counting.)
7. VOYAGER
The characters seem flat, the stories recycled. Nevertheless, Voyager gets bonus points for being from the Next Generation era of shows. (Seven seasons.)
6. THE ORIGINAL SERIES
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Company didn’t really become epic for me until the movies, but I have to give credit to the show that started it all. (Three seasons.)
5. PICARD
This one is hard for me to rate. It’s different. There are flaws, for sure, but I’m too much of a Jean-Luc Picard fan to not relish the opportunity to spend a little more time with the character. And occasionally the show rewards fans’ devotion with flashes of brilliance. Here’s to hoping the upcoming third and final season, which is billed as a Next Gen cast reunion/sendoff, delivers. (Two seasons in the book. The final season premieres February 16, 2023.)
4. PRODIGY
A cool ship, gorgeous animation, and fun action-adventure the entire family can enjoy. This show, which plays as a kind of sequel to Voyager, is an absolute treat with stakes every bit as high as those of any live-action Trek show to date. After we watched the penultimate episode, my eleven-year-old said, “How can it ever be OK?” I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say the ride was surprisingly intense. (One season and counting.)
3. DEEP SPACE NINE
DS9 will never be the most beloved Trek show, but its complex, multi-faceted characters and gritty mythology add texture to the entire Star Trek universe. (Seven seasons.)
2. STRANGE NEW WORLDS
A do-gooder captain grappling with his place in the cosmos. An updated Original Series aesthetic. Serious Next Gen vibes emanating from the writers’ room. Here we have Star Trek in its purest form. There isn’t a single dud in the ten-episode first season, and the episode titled “Memento Mori” is as good as anything Star Trek has ever done. (One season so far, a second season on the way, and hopefully many more seasons to come.)
1. THE NEXT GENERATION
Iconic characters, including the best captain ever, coupled with super-smart sci-fi storytelling. If we pretend like the first two seasons didn’t happen, I’ll argue with a straight face that this is the greatest TV show (Star Trek or otherwise) of all time. (Seven seasons.)
Chris lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Sara, and their seven children. He earned a B.A. in communications (print journalism emphasis) from Brigham Young University in 2003 and a J.D. from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2006. He has also watched every episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” more than once. Chris enjoys stories by Ray Bradbury, starry night skies, and cherry limeade. He is the author of Red: A Football Novel and other books and poetry.
Christopher D. Seifert 
I love these Star Trek tier lists! Of course no 2 opinion-based tier lists will ever match up, but I agree with the first two. I loved Strange New Worlds! The poster with Pike on a horse with the Enterprise in the background is probably my favorite Star Trek poster of all time. I also would put Discovery low on my list- it’s kind of all over the place. I will put forth an argument in favor of Voyager. At first I thought 7 of 9 was a male exec’s terrible idea, and while the outfit 100% was a terrible idea, 7 of 9 quickly became one of my favorite characters. I also love the EMH. Sure, Janeway and Paris had future slug babies. But Data was given DID by aliens who slowly turned the ship into a swamp, so no show is perfect. 😂
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There are people who truly love Voyager. I’m not one of them. In TNG, each character’s role and personality is so clearly defined. In Voyager, the characters, with the exceptions of Seven and the EMH, are all kind of squishy. Tom Paris, for example, could’ve been awesome, but instead he just turned into some guy. I completely agree that Seven’s outfit was a male executive’s really bad idea, but then Seven became Janeway’s Data, which was largely a positive development, although see my previous comment about Voyager’s stories feeling recycled.
I’m glad you liked Strange New Worlds as much as I did. Yes, the horse poster is awesome. (Now that you mention it, I might need to get one for our TV room.) If there is a perfect Star Trek show, it’s SNW. They haven’t messed up once in ten episodes. Hopefully, they can keep it going in Season Two. Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting. 🙂
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