The BEST episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series
Every episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series!
This is the further adventures of the Star Trek series in a half-hour animated form. This show basically continues the adventures of the original series (presumably in the fourth year of the five-year mission), but takes advantage of the unlimited special effects provided by animation to introduce more alien crewmen (the felinoid M'Ress and the tripedal Arex) as well as introduce more elaborate adventures like an underwater adventure, the miniaturization of the crew to 1 cm., and the appearance of a giant fire-breathing two-headed dragon. The show is currently not considered "canon" by Paramount and the folks associated with the various subsequent TV shows. However, elements of the animated series have been used in subsequent shows (Sarek refers to the events of "Yesteryear" in TNG's "Reunification Pt. 1") and the Enterprise-D's holodeck seems to have been in part inspired by the holodeck we see in "Practical Joker". Also, writers such as Peter David have used some elements from t
#1 - Yesteryear
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/15/1973
While on an away mission in the Guardian of Forever, Spock is erased from the timeline.
#2 - More Tribbles, More Troubles
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/6/1973
The U.S.S. Enterprise again crosses paths with Cyrano Jones, who this time has tribbles that do not breed but instead grow to an enormous size. The tribbles are back and are causing problems for the Klingons.
#3 - The Eye of the Beholder
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/5/1974
Beaming down to a planet to search for the crew of the missing ship Ariel, the U.S.S. Enterprise crew is captured by a race of super-intelligent slug creatures and become part of a zoo collection. They find the missing crew also trapped as prisoners in the alien zoo. Now they must somehow establish communications with their evolved slug-like captors who think of them as primitive animals.
#4 - One of Our Planets is Missing
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/22/1973
The crew of the Enterprise races to find a way to stop a cloud from destroying inhabited planets.
#5 - Albatross
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/28/1974
Dr. McCoy is arrested and held responsible for causing a plague that ravaged the planet Dramia Two, where he performed a mass-innoculation 19 years earlier.
#6 - The Lorelei Signal
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/29/1973
Investigating a sector of space where starships have disappeared every 27 years, the U.S.S. Enterprise male crew are attracted by a mysterious signal. Kirk beams down with a landing party and encounters a race of beautiful women who survive by drawing the energy from the male members of the ships that they have lured to their planet.
#7 - The Time Trap
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/24/1973
The U.S.S.Enterprise is sent on a mission to explore a "Bermuda Triangle of Space," only to find itself and a Klingon battlecruiser trapped in a time warp after being caught in an ion storm. The two ships must cooperate before their only exit back to real space closes for good. This Delta Triangle is inhabited by other lost ships, many centuries old.
#8 - The Counter-Clock Incident
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/12/1974
With Commodore Robert April (the first commander of the Enterprise) on board, Kirk pursues a ship plunging into a supernova, and enters a universe where time runs backwards.
#9 - Beyond the Farthest Star
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/8/1973
In orbit around a dead star, the Enterprise comes across a huge starship inhabited by a parasitic life form that threatens the entire ship.
#10 - The Terratin Incident
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/17/1973
While exploring a burnt-out supernova, the U.S.S. Enterprise responds to an old-style distress signal containing the word "Terratin," and follow it to its source: an uninhabited planet about to shatter from internal stress. However, a mysterious beam strikes the ship and the crew begins to shrink... and shrink... On the planet, Kirk finds a miniature city called Terratin and soon discovers that it is a lost Earth colony that has mutated because of the supernova's radiation.
#11 - The Practical Joker
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/21/1974
After avoiding a Romulan ambush by three of their warships, the U.S.S. Enterprise enters a strange energy cloud. The gaseous cloud affects the ship's computer turning it insane. With the crew at the mercy of the Enterprise's computer, it indulges in a series of increasingly aggressive practical jokes.
#12 - Mudd's Passion
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/10/1973
Harry Fenton Mudd is once again apprehended and incarcerated by the U.S.S. Enterprise crew, after trying to sell love crystals. He claims the love potion can cause any male and female to fall in love. He inadvertently releases it into the Enterprise's ventilation system and they discover that his claims are true. Mudd abducts Nurse Chapel and briefly escapes to a rocky planet in a stolen Enterprise Heavy shuttlecraft, but he is recaptured and sentenced to an indefinite period in rehabilitation therapy for violations of the Federation pharmaceutical code, including fraud, illegal drug manufacturing, swindling, and transport of a dangerous life-form (a Rigellian hypnoid).
#13 - The Pirates of Orion
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/7/1974
When Spock is stricken down by a disease fatal to Vulcans, the Enterprise is to meet a freighter with a load of drugs that provides the only cure, but Orion pirates attack the ship and Kirk must track down the Orions and the drug before it is too late.
#14 - Bem
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/14/1974
The U.S.S. Enterprise hosts Commander Ari bn Bem, an arrogant member of a neutral race from the newly-contacted planet Pandro. However, Bem endangers all of their lives when he conducts a test of suitability upon Kirk and Spock during an exploratory mission. This occurs on a planet of primitive natives under the guardianship of a noncorporeal being.
#15 - The Ambergris Element
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/1/1973
While exploring the planet Argo, Kirk and Spock are turned into water breathers.
#16 - Once Upon a Planet
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/3/1973
Kirk returns to the ""shore leave"" planet, but it's not as peaceful as it was when they last saw it.
#17 - The Slaver Weapon
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/15/1973
Spock, Sulu, and Uhura are delivering a stasis box from the extinct Slaver race on the shuttlecraft Copernicus. When they detect another box and follow its signal, they soon discover that a Kzinti privateer has set a trap. Capturing the Enterprise crew, they discover their box holds a rare find, a shape-shifting Slaver weapon. Now Spock and the others must keep the Kzinti from returning to their government with the weapon.
#18 - The Magicks of Megas-Tu
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/27/1973
The Enterprise travels to the center of the galaxy only to discover themselves sucked into a dimension where the laws of time and space no longer apply, and "magic" functions for those capable of grasping its fundamentals. Stopping at Megas-Tu, a planet where magic and witchcraft are the norm, the crew finds their guide is Lucien, who is Lucifer of Earth mythology.
#19 - The Infinite Vulcan
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/20/1973
On the recently-discovered planet Phylos, the U.S.S. Enterprise crew meets Dr. Keniclius, a human scientist who survived Earth's Eugenics Wars and now grown to giant proportions. The Phylosians are a once vast plant-based civilization that has been reduced to a few survivors. Led by Keniclius, the Phylosians abduct Spock so the doctor can make him into a giant clone with the intention of forcing peace on the galaxy.
#20 - The Survivor
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/13/1973
Patrolling near the Neutral Zone, the U.S.S. Enterprise finds a ship and rescues Carter Winston, a Federation citizen, financier, and philanthropist missing for 5 years. However, Winston turns out to really be a Vendorian, an alien species that can transform its shape at will. He is also allied with the Romulans.
#21 - The Jihad
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/12/1974
Kirk leads a party to retrieve a religious relic that was stolen; however, he is faced with sabotage from within the group by someone who doesn't want to relic to be found, which will trigger an intergalactic jihad.
#22 - How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/5/1974
Backtracking a mysterious alien probe, the U.S.S. Enterprise encounters a ship in the shape of a giant feathered serpent, which turns out to be Kukulkan, a god of ancient Mayan-Aztec legend. Its captain, Kukulkan, is actually a very long-lived benevolent entity who wants the humans to worship him just as the Mayans and Aztecs did. He insists on putting Kirk and others through a test to determine if they have grown sufficiently to receive his wisdom.