The Best Episode From Every Star Trek TV Series

Star Trek has been around for 60 years, with the original series premiering in 1966 and several spinoffs following over the years. The most recent addition debuted in 2026 with Starfleet Academy, the 11th full series in the franchise (not including the short-form anthology series Short Treks and The Animated Series from 1973). While the overall quality of Starfleet Academy remains to be seen as the show continues to find its footing, the previous 10 series have all had a chance to prove their greatness with fans, and all of the shows, no matter their overall quality, have some incredible episodes that are among the best for the franchise in general.

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Here is a look at the best overall episode from each of the 10 primary Star Trek series predating Starfleet Academy.

10) Star Trek: Prodigy – Kobayashi (01.06)

The Star Trek series Prodigy was the first in the franchise to be primarily geared toward kids. It was a success, as well, with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 87% audience score. However, it ended up split between two streaming services, with Paramount+ airing the first season in 20921 and Netflix picking it up for the second season in 2024.

As a show for kids, it didn’t have as much in the way of prestige episodes, but the best was “Kobayashi,” which sees Dal and Jankom Pog taking part in the Kobayashi Maru (no-win scenario) that Captain Kirk beat in the past. Adding in lines from past episodes, such as those from Spock, made this a fantastic throwback episode for older fans, with a solid life lesson for the kids.

9) Star Trek: Enterprise – Similitude (03.10)

Star Trek: Enterprise was not well received, with a low 56% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, although it still has an 80% audience score. The series ran for four seasons and was a prequel to The Original Series, set 100 years earlier. The best episode came in the third season, written by Manny Coto, who then took over as the showrunner in the fourth and final season.

“Similitude” sees Cmdr. Tucker (Connor Trinneer) critically injured, so the crew clones him so they can use the clone’s brain tissue to save his life. However, when the clone rapidly ages, it begins to plead for its right to live, delivering a heartbreaking moral dilemma for the crew.

8) Star Trek: Discovery – Species Ten-C (04.12)

Star Trek Discovery was the first series in the franchise to air on streaming, starting on CBS All Access, which turned into Paramount+. It ran for five seasons and follows the crew of the starship Discovery, a decade before The Original Series in the 23rd century, before they time-traveled to the 32nd century at the end of the second season. The best episode is “Species Ten-C,” which was the penultimate episode of the fourth season.

This episode actually went back to the main prime directive as the crew found new life, a truly alien lifeform that was entirely non-humanoid. This was one of the best Star Trek episodes from any of the shows when dealing with a crew finding an alien lifeform that is completely alien and almost indecipherable. It brings a lot of questions on how to deal with unknown lifeforms, while ensuring a fair life for everyone.

7) Picard – The Last Generation (03.10)

Picard was a really exciting show when it was announced, but then it never really hit the levels that fans of The Next Generation might have hoped for. It has a very low 57% audience score, with many people complaining that they didn’t like how the series portrayed Picard compared to his time as the captain in TNG.

However, there were some great moments in the series, and things got better when it brought in some of the older characters to join Picard. This led to “The Last Generation,” which was the finale of the series. What makes this really special is that it was the swan song for the TNG crew, something they didn’t get after Star Trek: Nemesis ended their movie run. Every character got their moment, and when it ended with them all sitting around and reminiscing, this episode finally delivered what fans wanted originally from Picard.

6) Star Trek: Lower Decks – An Embarrassment of Dooplers (02.05)

Star Trek: Lower Decks was such a pleasant surprise for fans, as it brought some great humor and heart to the Star Trek franchise in what could have been a throwaway animated series. As the first animated Star Trek series since the 1974 version, as well as its first comedy series, it had every chance to fail, especially with some of the more over-serious Star Trek fans.

With a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 72% audience score, it was a tremendous success. With five seasons, there is a lot to love, but the best episode was part of the second season, “An Embarrassment of Dooplers.” This has a lot in common with “The Trouble with Tribbles” from TOS, but instead, it is an alien called a Doopler who duplicates when they get embarrassed. It is funny, but also contains the heart that most of the series is known for.

5) Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Those Old Scientists (02.07)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is still ongoing, with its fourth season hitting in 2026. This series takes place a decade before TOS with Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) leading the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century. The series remains incredibly popular and is one of the best series for the franchise in years, and a good example of why it is the episode “These Old Scientists.”

This was a second-season episode that actually crossed over with the animated series Lower Decks. Ens. Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Mariner (Tawny Newsome) from Lower Decks are sent back in time to when Pike was the Enterprise captain, and that leads to this story. This offered up the humor of Lower Decks and the basic tone of Strange New Worlds, and somehow it worked out perfectly. It remains one of the most entertaining Star Trek episodes, regardless of the series.

4) Star Trek: Voyager – Timeless (05.06)

Star Trek: Voyager is back in the spotlight thanks to Starfleet Academy and the return of The Doctor (Robert Picardo). With Captain Janeway at the helm, this remains one of the best series in the franchise, even if it is often underrated by the more hardcore fans. The best episode of this series involves time travel, and one of the most underrated characters ever to appear in a Star Trek series, Harry Kim (Garrett Wang).

“Timeless” sees Harry Kim and Chakotay (Robert Beltran) 15 years in the future, where they find the frozen husk of Voyager buried in a glacier. This disaster was because Kim himself made a critical mistake and caused it to happen, with him and Chakotay as the only survivors. The story then sees them trying to fix the mistake and erase the previous 15 years from history. This episode even gets bonus credit for the appearance of LeVar Burton as Capt. Geordi La Forge.

3) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Visitor (04.02)

Some Star Trek fans might consider this Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode as the best in the history of the franchise. This was a fourth-season episode called “The Visitor,” which sees the story told by an elderly Jake (Sisko’s son). Tony Todd stars as the elderly Jake, as he recounts how Sisko ended up unstuck in time so he could visit Jake atdifferent times in his life.

The series also showed how Jake was almost obsessed with bringing Sisko back to him, only for his father to tell him not worry about it and to live his life to the fullest and not waste it by trying to change his fate. Sadly, this also had an extremely sad ending because Jake couldn’t do that, and he had to sacrifice himself to restore the flow of time in one of the most heartbreaking moments in the entire franchise.

2) Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Inner Light (05.25)

It should come as no surprise that the best episode in the history of Star Trek: The Next Generation came in one that focused mostly on Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). “The Inner Light” was a fifth-season episode of TNG, and it sees Picard hit with a signal that sends him into another man’s life on a dying planet. What really hits hard about this episode is that Picard experiences this man’s entire lifetime, including his wife, kids, and grandchildren, and he does it all in a matter of 25 minutes.

The big twist here is that this was done to offer him a time capsule of one man’s life on a planet that died 1,000 years ago when a star exploded. That is heavy stuff as it is, but what really slams this home is that Picard realizes the life he gave up when he became a starship captain, and after finally experiencing it here, he has it all ripped away from him. There really isn’t a more powerful episode of Star Trek than this experience.

1) Star Trek – The City on the Edge of Forever (01.28)

It is easy to look at the original Star Trek series and see it as a throwback era, with a great cast and fun stories, but nothing really deeper than that. However, that would be a mistake because this original series has so much under the hood for people willing to understand what it’s trying to say. There are a lot of ideas and themes that later series hammered home that were done more subliminally here in the original show.

The best of these is “The City on the Edge of Forever,” a first-season episode that sees Bones accidentally jump through a time portal and change history so much that the Enterprise no longer exists. Kirk and Spock travel back in time to New York during the Great Depression to stop him. When they realize Bones changed history by saving a woman’s life, they have to make the toughest decision to risk one person for the greater good. It was proof that Star Trek was way ahead of its time, and TOS was just as good at delivering messages like this as anything that came later.

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