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Every Star Trek TV Show’s Series Finale, Ranked (#1 Had a Perfect Ending)
Star Trek started its newest series in 2026 with Starfleet Academy, while Strange New Worlds is still ongoing. These are the 11th and 12th series, not counting the Short Treks from 2018 to 2020. This means there are 10 Star Trek series finales in history, starting with Star Trek: The Original Series and continuing on through Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Discovery, and even the solo film, Star Trek: Picard. However, not all series finales lived up to what fans might have expected, and others disappointed fans because they ended in ways that people didn’t appreciate, letting the fans down.
Here is a look at every Star Trek series finale, ranked.
10) “Turnabout Intruder” – Star Trek: The Original Series
Season finales are supposed to wrap up a show’s overall story and tie things together. However, that isn’t how television used to work. In the 1960s and 70s, series finales were just another episode, not the grand finale for the series. The series finale for Star Trek: The Original Series was just another episode, and it wasn’t anywhere near the level of other great episodes from the classic show.
“Turnabout Intruder” was a former lover of Captain Kirk, and she switches bodies with him so she can serve as captain of the Enterprise, something that women could not do (at the time TOS aired, at least). For a show that featured great diversity, this was easily one of the worst, with a depiction of sexism and misogyny that this series was supposed to have surpassed. It wasn’t just the worst Star Trek series finale, but also one of the original series’ worst episodes.
9) “These Are the Voyages…” – Star Trek: Enterprise
The problem with the finale to Star Trek: Enterprise was that it disrespected the cast and crew of this entire series after four seasons of storytelling. “These Are the Voyages…” What makes this such a terrible finale is that the showrunners felt the only way to make it memorable was to bring back cast members from Star Trek: The Next Generation. All that did was anger fans of Enterprise.
The episode has William Riker and Deanna Troi watching a holodeck recording of Enterprise’s final mission (set during the events of the TNG episode The Pegasus). The episode takes place after a six-year time jump, but nothing has changed to make the time even matter. Then, Trip sacrifices his life to save the Enterprise from pirates. Even star Scott Bakula has spoken out about how much he disliked this Star Trek finale.
8) “The Counter-Clock Incident” – Star Trek: The Animated Series
Much like The Original Series, the 1970s Star Trek: The Animated Series also didn’t have a series finale that wrapped up the show, although that series really had little going on with long-form storytelling to matter enough to have one. Instead, the animated series concluded with an episode called “The Counter-Lock Incident.” This episode finds the crew of the Enterprise pulled into a “negative universe,” where everything moves backward in time.
This means the entire crew starts de-aging. By the end of the episode, the crew is all turned into children, and by the end, they are just babies crawling around the decks. The good news is that the first-ever captain of the Enterprise, Robert April, is old enough to still be at the age where he can remember what his life was like when he was younger, and still save the crew and get them back to their normal ages in the end. It is not a bad episode, but it really doesn’t fit the idea of a series finale either.
7) “Ouroboros” – Star Trek: Prodigy
One of the more recent Star Trek series to end was Star Trek: Prodigy, which aired its first season on Paramount+ and then finished its run with a 20-episode second season on Netflix. Another animated series, this was a two-part finale that did what all great television finales should do. It took the ragtag group of misfits and allowed them to show and earn their growth throughout the show’s two-season journey.
The story sees Asencia (Jameela Jamil) launch an all-out attack on Federation locations, which leads to the crew putting their plan into effect to stop her. This was a story with a villain in place for the entire season, and the finale was a thrilling conclusion to defeat that bad guy and allow the crew to move on. It was a fantastic ending, albeit one that was a little less complex than other great franchise finales.
6) “The New Next Generation” – Star Trek: Lower Decks
Star Trek: Lower Decks was the last Star Trek series to end, airing its finale on Paramount+ just five months after Prodigy. That Star Trek was airing two different animated shows at the same time was an interesting decision, but it was Lower Decks that was the better of the two shows, airing for five seasons and offering smart storytelling with a fun animation style.
The title of the finale, “The New Next Generation,” paid homage to what came before, which makes sense because this series fits solidly into the main live-action shows, and it even had a crossover in the live-action world. The best part about the Season 5 finale was that these lower-deck officers got their chance to end up promoted to Starfleet senior staff, and while it left the door open for future seasons, it also worked as a solid series finale.
5) “Life, Itself” – Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: Discovery took a big chance halfway through its run when it moved the starship into the 32nd century. This time travel shook up everything on the show and made the outcome questionable. The final three seasons saw the Federation and Starfleet attempting to rebuild things after an interstellar cataclysm. Meanwhile, the crew of the Discovery discovered something bigger. They set off to find tech left by the Progenitors, the race that created humanoid life.
The one thing that really holds back the Star Trek: Discovery finale from others is that the production didn’t know this was going to be the final season of the show. As a result, the production ordered reshoots after the cancellation announcement, and the final episode became an epilogue. What keeps it higher than other series finales is the emotional wedding between Ambassadors Saru (Doug Jones) and T’Rina (Tara Rosling), and it was possibly the best option with the late cancellation.
4) “The Last Generation” – Star Trek: Picard
Star Trek: Picard was a series that brought back one of the franchise’s most popular characters for a rare solo series. While Patrick Stewart only agreed to do it as long as the show didn’t play off The Next Generation, the fan complaints and lower critical acclaim caused a slight change in the final season. That is when Picard went all-in on nostalgia.
The final episode of Star Trek: Picard was not only one of the better Star Trek series finales, but it was also one of the best Star Trek episodes ever made. The Enterprise-D crew got back together, with Picard reuniting with Riker, Data, Worf, Deanna, and Geordi for one last mission. The ending, with them all sitting around playing cards and talking, was a pitch-perfect finale.
3) “Endgame” – Star Trek: Voyager
Not enough people talk about how great the Star Trek: Voyager finale really was. This is likely because it didn’t focus as much on the overwhelming questions and instead delivered an exciting conclusion that stopped at just the right moment. Lost for seven seasons, Captain Janeway and her crew fought to find their way back home, and the series never showed that moment.
Instead, this series finale has the crew already back on Earth, and Captain Janeway is now an admiral. However, the crew lost Seven of Nine on the way home, and she seeks a way to right this wrong and deliver on her promise to get everyone home. She uses time travel and heads off to wipe out the Borg. The story is impressive, but the series ending before the crew even makes it to Earth’s orbit was a massive missed opportunity.
2) “What You Leave Behind” – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
There are arguments for both Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation for the best series finales in Star Trek history. However, while the edge goes to TNG, that should never discount how incredibly DS9 ended. In “What You Leave Behind,” the overall story arc of the war between the Federation and the Dominion ended up settled in a battle that included a ton of action and some tough losses.
When Deep Space Nine began, Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) was a commander who was tired of his job and wanted out. By the end of this Star Trek finale, he sacrificed his own life to save DS9 and the Bajoran people, who saw him as an emissary for their gods. Seeing Sisko’s story as the main running plot of this series made this finale a perfect ending for the series. To add to the praise, the entire cast was great in this episode, and the battles were among the best in the franchise.
1) “All Good Things…” – Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation not only had the best Star Trek finale of the franchise, but one of the best in all of sci-fi television. “All Good Things…” was seemingly an homage to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as Picard saw his life in the past, present, and future, and had to figure out how to stop a threat to all of humanity.
The best part of this episode was that it didn’t matter if it was the past, present, or future, because his crew was loyal to him every step of the way. Q (John de Lancie) also played a huge part here because he was there to lead Picard on this journey, with humanity’s existence on the line. With the morality tale and Picard having to make the right decision, this episode is what Star Trek was always meant to look like, and that is why it is the best Star Trek finale of any series.
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