“Star Trek: The Animated Series” is, dare I declare, better than the original “Star Trek” that preceded it. “The Animated Series” was also created by Gene Roddenberry, starred the same cast of actors as “Star Trek” (sans Walter Koenig), and was penned by the same writing staff. The tone and the spirit of the original series remained intact, but “Animated Series” bore some distinct advantages over its forebear. For one, the series was only 30 minutes per episode, requiring the writers to be more succinct. The pacing was infinitely better as a result. 

Also, the animated medium allowed the showrunners to run with wilder, more alien ideas than live-action would have ever allowed them. In animation, one can write a story about a 50-foot Spock, envision alien creatures made of plant material, or concoct an underwater civilization. Filmation oversaw “Star Trek: The Animated Series,” and while the famed animation studio isn’t exactly well-known for Miyazaki-level movements and visual dynamics (Filmation shows are notorious static and visually stodgy), they could at least design weird starships, animal-like aliens, and vast extraterrestrial landscapes with aplomb. 

Many of the aliens, ships, and uniforms on “The Animated Series” were pink, leading to long-standing rumors that Filmation director Hal Sutherland, who was colorblind, made all the coloring decisions. In fact, most of the coloring was overseen by Irv Kaplan, who was not colorblind. He just liked the color pink. 

“The Animated Series” ran from 1973 to 1974, more or less completing the promised five-year mission spoken of in Trek’s original narration.

Of course, “The Animated Series” wasn’t comprised of 100% bangers. Just like on the original “Star Trek,” there were some pretty bad episodes as well. None of them are outright offensive, luckily, and even the bad episodes usually have some kind of ambitious idea or interesting visual twist behind them. Below are the worst episodes of the series, ranked.