Another Trek series wraps up. Spoilers.
I’m not massively sad that this is the last season of the show. While it’s had some great moments, and it’s been consistently entertaining, it’s never quite lived up to the promise. The writers could never seem to decide between mere callbacks and episodes based on previous Trek.
This season had some really fun episodes, and I think did a really good job of staying away from more cliche plot elements and structures. It was consistently willing to try and tell the more interesting, better earned story. This season also felt a little bit less joke heavy than previous years – a greater emphasis on telling a story than on setting up wacky hijinks.
One major weakness is not having enough space to really develop anyone other than Mariner and Boimler. They’ve been allowed to grow between the start of the series and now in a way that Tendi and Rutherford haven’t – the others had adventures, but never really changed very much. Perhaps a consequence of each story needing to fit into 25 minutes, but I think it was more a case of not having anything very interesting to do with those characters.
One final note on this season was the relatively low-key approach to the overarching plot. It really only featured in the last couple of episodes. But with enough references through the season to make it not come out of nowhere. Ultimately a better approach for a show like this I think.
Overall I think this falls even with the last couple of seasons of Lower Decks. A little ahead of Season 4, I think, but behind Season 2. So that takes the season rankings to:
The very best of Trek (top 7):
- SNW Season 1
- PIC Season 3
- PIC Season 1
- SNW Season 2
- TNG Season 6
- DS9 Season 2
- PIC Season 2
Strong performers (next 10):
- PRO Season 1
- LD Season 1
- DS9 Season 5
- TNG Season 3
- TNG Season 5
- TOS Season 2
- DIS Season 2
- ENT Season 3
- TNG Season 4
- VOY Season 4
Mixed bag (middle 16):
- TOS Season 1
- DS9 Season 4
- LD Season 3
- LD Season 2
- LD Season 5
- DIS Season 1
- DIS Season 5
- LD Season 4
- ST Season 2
- DS9 Season 1
- ENT Season 4
- DIS Season 3
- ST Season 1
- VOY Season 5
- ENT Season 1
- VOY Season 1
- TNG Season 7
Not good (second worst 9):
- DS9 Season 3
- DS9 Season 6
- DIS Season 4
- VOY Season 6
- VOY Season 3
- TNG Season 2
- ENT Season 2
- TAS Season 1
- VST Season 1
Really just awful (the bottom 6):
- VOY Season 7
- VOY Season 2
- DS9 Season 7
- TOS Season 3
- TAS Season 2
- TNG Season 1
I also realise that I haven’t updated the series league table. We need to add in Picard, Discovery and Lower Decks now. Overall Picard is at the top for me. Lower Decks slots in between TNG and Enterprise. And I’ll give credit to the first couple of seasons of Discovery to slot it in just behind TOS.
- Picard
- Deep Space 9
- The Next Generation
- Lower Decks
- Enterprise
- The Original Series
- Discovery
- Voyager
- The Animated Series
Now for a break. I know I have Prodigy to cover, but waiting for my favourite recap podcast to start covering those. 2025 is going to also include the Section 31 streaming movie, Strange New Worlds season 3, and maybe some of the other new series.