Star Trek: EVERY Season Ranked Worst To Best
33. The Animated Series - Seasons 1 & 2
Potentially this is a bit of a cheat, yet both seasons of the Animated Series are very much on par with each other in terms of quality. Plus, there are sixteen episodes of the first season with only six in the second season, which would lead to a slightly unfair difference in evaluation.
The Animated Series was seen by the writers as the fourth season of the Original Series. It exists in a strange sort of limbo where it both is and isn't considered canon.
After the end of the first season of The Next Generation, the licence was renewed and restructured by Gene Roddenberry, who then deemed all of the Animated Series not to be canon. However, after his death, references started to slip in to various episodes. In Deep Space Nine, both Kor's ship the Klothos is name dropped, having been introduced in The Time Trap. The Vulcan Forge is also mentioned by Worf, after having been introduced in Yesteryear.
While there are now too many references to list here, it can be quietly assumed that the show is canon. However, because of this, it must come in at this low ranking as, while it was a wonderful attempt to keep Star Trek alive, and certainly contributed to it, it is an oddity in that the crew of the Enterprise are enjoying their trippy, '70s best.
Not that that's always a bad thing, mind you