7 Best Episodes Of Star Trek’s Animated Shows

The Star Trek franchise includes three animated series that expand the premise of Starfleet crews exploring space and promoting intergalactic peace. These shows are aimed at slightly different audiences: Prodigy is the most child-friendly; Lower Decks is a comedy aimed at adults; and The Animated Series is an extension of Star Trek: The Original Series meant to appeal to all age groups.

These animated series all offered a variety of high-quality episodes, demonstrating that they were just as worthy of the franchise as live-action series and movies. Some episodes, such as Lower Deck‘s “First First Contact”, are often ranked highly on fan lists of their favorite episodes throughout the entire franchise. For this reason, it is difficult to narrow down which episodes are truly the best animated episodes, but several stand out from the rest.

7) “Observer’s Paradox” – Prodigy

“Observer’s Paradox” revolves around the aftermath of the Protostar crew having accidentally changed past timelines, leading to Gwyn being displaced from her proper reality. The episode uses classic tropes such as time travel problems and a cryptic message from a mysterious entity encountered in the past timeline. The young protagonists must find a way to work together to decipher a message given through Murf that they cannot understand, while The Doctor keeps an eye on them and Janeway tries to find a way to fix Gwen’s timeline.

While all of this is interesting, it is also standard Star Trek fare. However, this episode shines because of the raised stakes: Starfleet orders the wormhole closed before Gwyn’s timeline is restored, and it’s unknown how this will affect her. Later, Gwyn also has to change the frequency on her armband as part of deciphering the cryptic message, which disrupts her stabilization in this reality.

6) “Hear All, Trust Nothing” – Lower Decks

“Hear All, Trust Nothing” is a fan favorite because it offers a crossover with Star Trek: Deep Space 9 in animated form. The episode begins with Freeman being ordered to take over trade negotiations with the Karemma, a mercantile species, to heal the scars of the Dominion War. Freeman has little time to prepare, but fortunately, the talks will take place on Deep Space 9, where Kira is on hand to help.

The crossover appearances add to the fun in one of the most hilarious episodes of the series. The Karemma are an interesting species that only agree to the negotiations because they think they can manipulate things into big profits for themselves, though later they become dangerous, partially thanks to Deep Space 9‘s Quark fighting with them. However, the best part of the episode is Marina’s subplot, in which her bossiness turns out to be an asset despite her efforts to hide it.

5) “One of Our Planets is Missing” — The Animated Series

“One of Our Planets Is Missing” reflects the plotlines and values that made The Original Series so successful. The episode revolves around a cloud-like entity that appears to be eating other planets. While the easiest way to deal with the threat is to kill the entity, Kirk prefers not to do so, demonstrating the dedication to avoiding violence and loss of life whenever possible.

The end of the episode is satisfying because it shows that Kirk’s impulses were correct. When Spock mind-melds with the entity and helps it see that there are living beings on the planet that will be killed if it eats them, the entity decides to change its plans. This is a brilliant way to showcase the theme of building bridges of understanding with alien creatures rather than assuming ill intent. Of course, the question of what the entity will eat is not resolved, leaving a weird Star Trek plothole, but the theme still makes this episode stand out.

4) “The Slaver Weapon” — The Animated Series

“The Slaver Weapon” is widely considered to be one of the best episodes of The Animated Series because of the high-stakes storyline and the theme of violence always leading to self-destruction. Larry Nivens based the teleplay for this episode on his own short story, and the ending is one that is equivalent to the best Twilight Zone twist endings.

This story revolves around a statis box that Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Sulu are supposed to deliver — but the formerly powerful Kzniti want the weapon inside it to try to restore their former empire. The brilliance of this story comes in the last few minutes, when the Kzniti’s violent attempt to return to the past causes them to accidentally engage the weapon’s self-destruct mode, underscoring Star Trek‘s theme that violence doesn’t pay.

3) “Is There In Beauty No Truth?” — Prodigy

“Is There In Beauty No Truth?” is the Prodigy episode that is closest in spirit to the original Star Trek. In this episode, Zero has the opportunity to experience life as a corporeal being after making telepathic contact with a planet of formerly non-corporeal beings who have discovered how to give themselves bodies.

Zero’s dilemma throughout the episode is one of the most compelling in Star Trek history. Becoming corporeal allows them to enjoy food, hug their friends, and feel fully alive, but to keep this body, they have to stay on the planet. There is also an ethical dilemma to this story, as the other beings don’t tell Zero about these conditions before asking them to participate in a potentially deadly race that supposedly will make them one with their new body if they win.

2) “First First Contact” – Lower Decks

“First First Contact” is an almost perfect first-season finale for Lower Decks. The main plot involves the crew helping the Archimedes to make first contact on a new planet, but the mission is thrown out of whack when solar flares hit the ship and cause severe damage.

This story is compelling enough, but the episode really shines because it is set against the backdrop of Freeman’s plans to take a promotion that won’t allow her to continue working with her crew. Additionally, Freeman’s jarring arrest at the end of the episode is a stunning cliffhanger that is virtually unparalleled in the franchise.

1) “Yesteryear” — The Animated Series

“Yesteryear” is one of the best stories in the entire Star Trek franchise, and its quality is even more amazing when considering that it was only the second episode of The Animated Series to air. The plot of this episode involves Spock having to go back in time to save the life of his younger self so that he will not be erased from his present timeline. While the idea of a past self dying or changing in some major way has been done often in science fiction, this was one of the earliest — and best — versions of it.

The story is one of the simpler Star Trek stories, but is nevertheless effective. After Spock appears to have been deleted from the present timeline, he recalls that his life was saved at age 7 by a distant relative named Selek, and Kirk realizes that “Selek” was Spock himself. Spock can save his own life, but at the cost of the life of his child-self’s pet.

This complication — and “Selek’s” final scenes with his younger self add a new level of emotionality to this already-strong story. Additionally, the child Spock’s decision to euthanize his pet to protect him from unnecessary pain is a turning point in which Spock becomes committed to putting reason above emotion and embracing his Vulcan heritage.

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