Game The Most Disliked Animated Trek, 2025 Edition

[Artoo Atari]

I was thinking a couple of TAS epiosdes were easily worse than PRO, but that's where the music stopped this time.

That's why I love this game.

I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, I cannot get Prodigy on any of my streaming services, so I've never seen any of the episodes, which is why I sat out most of this game. However, I have seen several of the TAS episodes and I cannot imagine that the writing and animation on TAS would be rated more highly than Prodigy.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

As Peter Gabriel sand, "I know what I like and I like what I know."

(He also sang, "Me, I'm just a lawnmower, you can tell me by the way I walk.")

 

[Sakonna]

I do think animated Trek is really good on the whole. TAS is a charming throwback that is fascinatingly weird. The ST's were interesting experiments that give us something new. LD is brilliant top to bottom, one of the best Trek series. And Prodigy...

I guess I'm in the minority, but I do think Prodigy is the weak link here. I ultimately do like it, but it's the most conceptually confused. I always had a "who is this really targeted at?" feeling watching it. There were elements that were way too much for the supposed target age range, but there were also a lot of kid-specific elements that were discordant with that.

I mean, the goal of so much animation is to be as appealing to the adults as it is to the kids, so I get what they were going for, but I don't think Prodigy smoothed it over properly. I often felt like I was watching a show frantically run back and fourth between the kids stuff and the adult stuff, and they had failed to develop it into one cohesive piece. The elements were often working against each other instead of with each other.

And it still bugs me that absolutely the darkest, most twisted, most disturbing redshirt deaths of the entire franchise are in this kids show. And there were a lot of them.

Also, the serial story plotting was often overcomplicated to the point of feeling utterly tortured.

At the end of the day, I like it more than I dislike it. I adore the characters. I'm glad we have it.

But my ideal winner probably would have been one of the serial-story-heavy installments of season 2, so this winner is dead-on for me! And I guess only me.

 

[Artoo Atari]

I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, I cannot get Prodigy on any of my streaming services, so I've never seen any of the episodes, which is why I sat out most of this game. However, I have seen several of the TAS episodes and I cannot imagine that the writing and animation on TAS would be rated more highly than Prodigy.

Let me just amend my comment somewhat by stating that TAS: "Yesteryear" was very well done and IMHO ranks up there with some of the best live-action episodes.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

This may be the most beloved Most Disliked winner yet! I guess that shows how strong Trek animation has been.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I mean, the goal of so much animation is to be as appealing to the adults as it is to the kids, so I get what they were going for, but I don't think Prodigy smoothed it over properly. I often felt like I was watching a show frantically run back and fourth between the kids stuff and the adult stuff, and they had failed to develop it into one cohesive piece. The elements were often working against each other instead of with each other.

Not necessarily. Prodigy was designed for Nickeledeon, which is very much directed at young people. Any adult interest is a bonus, perhaps helping to make it comfortable for adults to watch along with their children. I will agree that Prodigy seemed to lack cohesion when it came to audience design. Often it seemed to want to compete with Clone Wars. However, there were episodes that were extraordinary in how they pushed pedagogically important skills to children. If the adult audience could get over not having Star Trek service them, they could appreciate how "Time Amok" is easily one of the best Star Trek episodes: repetitive tasks, patience, scaffolding, all contributing to the growth of the individual. A Star Trek that did that more would rival everything on PBS Kids.

 

[Sakonna]

Not necessarily. Prodigy was designed for Nickeledeon, which is very much directed at young people. Any adult interest is a bonus, perhaps helping to make it comfortable for adults to watch along with their children. I will agree that Prodigy seemed to lack cohesion when it came to audience design. Often it seemed to want to compete with Clone Wars. However, there were episodes that were extraordinary in how they pushed pedagogically important skills to children. If the adult audience could get over not having Star Trek service them, they could appreciate how "Time Amok" is easily one of the best Star Trek episodes: repetitive tasks, patience, scaffolding, all contributing to the growth of the individual. A Star Trek that did that more would rival everything on PBS Kids.

Yeah, I think we basically agree. One way it could have satisfied my desire to be a more cohesive show is by picking the "kids show" lane more decisively, but there were adult components mixed in that didn't serve that audience at all (particularly in season two).

I would do big family watch nights with kids that were dead-on in the supposed target age range, and there was just so much in it that was too adult or too harsh or too confusing for them. Even though, on balance, we all liked it more than we disliked it. We just wished it didn't have so many moments of frustration for all of us.

 

[Victoria]

If the Very Short Treks had been included, there might have been a worthier winner.

 

[Sakonna]

I thought about the Very Short Trek's for a second, but I just couldn't stomach having them there at all. And since they're non-canon and more like promotional material than their own thing, that seemed a good reason to leave them off.

But you're right, that is the weak link in Trek animation when you zoom out.

The 2022 winner of this game was TAS: "The Eye Of The Beholder."

MOST DISLIKED WINNERS, 2025
MAJEL BARRETT APPEARANCE: TAS, Season 1: "The Ambergris Element"
THR'S 100 BEST TREK EPS: TNG, Season 4: "Brothers"
JEFFREY COMBS APPEARANCE: DS9, Season 6: "Profit & Lace"
5TH SEASON: VOY, Season 5: "Warhead"
6TH SEASON: VOY, Season 6: "Fair Haven"
7TH SEASON: VOY, Season 7: "Natural Law"
COUPLE: VOY: Seven/Chakotay
KLINGON: ENT, Season 2: "Marauders"
TWO-PARTER: ENT, Season 4: "Storm Front"
THREE-PARTER: ENT, Season 4: "Borderland/Cold Station 12/The Augments"
4TH SEASON: ENT, Season 4: "These Are The Voyages..."
SEASON FINALE ANTAGONIST: ENT, Season 4: Holographic Recreation Of Unnamed Alien Criminal, "These Are The Voyages..."
SECTION 31: DIS, Season 2: "Perpetual Infinity"
HOLODECK: DIS, Season 3: "Su'Kal"
DIRECTOR JONATHAN FRAKES: DIS, Season 3: "There Is A Tide..."
EXIT OF A REGULAR: DIS, Season 4: "All Is Possible" (Sylvia Tilly)
SEASON PREMIERE: ST, Season 1: "Runaway"
GUINAN APPEARANCE: PIC, Season 2: "Monsters"
ANIMATED TREK: PRO, Season 2: "Ascension, Part II"
REGULAR CHARACTER: PRO: Drednok

Next Up: "The Most Disliked Episode Directed By David Livingston"

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, I cannot get Prodigy on any of my streaming services, so I've never seen any of the episodes, which is why I sat out most of this game.

There's a wonderful invention called physical media. It's a way of putting information -- books, audio recordings, video recordings, computer data -- onto a tangible object. And as long as the tangible object is not destroyed or damaged, you only have to obtain it once, and you can enjoy it for a lifetime.

PRO is available on DVD.

 

[Artoo Atari]

There's a wonderful invention called physical media. It's a way of putting information -- books, audio recordings, video recordings, computer data -- onto a tangible object. And as long as the tangible object is not destroyed or damaged, you only have to obtain it once, and you can enjoy it for a lifetime.

PRO is available on DVD.

If it's on a service I already pay for, then I might take a look at it. Until then, it just never has caught my interest enough to buy the "physical media" of it that you mentioned.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

The first season came out on half-season sets. I liked the first half-season set enough to buy the second (and it might have even been the DVD set that, while I was on vacation in San Jose, I made a special trip by trolley, bus, and shoeleather in order to pick it up at the local B&N, the day of release (either that or a season-set of SNW).

I think I must have failed to notice that the second season set came out back in November. Or I was waiting for a brick-and-mortar B&N to have it.