Star Trek’s Best Series Finales, Ranked

The finale episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Animated Series tie for last because on a list of best finales, it’s really the only fair spot for both. While they both deserve the lowest spot, judging them against one another seems pointless because — unlike every other finale on this list — neither was written to be a finale, but just another episode.

The final episode of the series that started it all, “Turnabout Intruder,” is the 24th episode of Star Trek‘s third season. The villain of the week is Federation scientist Dr. Janice Lester (Sandra Smith) who is angry about the greater career advances denied women. She’s so angry about it that in “Turnabout Intruder” she uses an alien device she discovers to switch bodies with her old lover Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and takes over the Enterprise.

If we were going to judge these two finales against each other, the Star Trek: The Animated Series final episode “The Counter-Clock Incident” might earn the higher spot on the best finale list if for no other reason than it introduces Commodore Robert April — the Enterprise captain who precedes Christopher Pike and who is played by Adrian Holmes in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

“The Counter-Clock Incident” finds April and his wife traveling on the Enterprise as honored dignitaries. The ship finds itself pulled into another universe where the crew ages backwards, and April and his wife are the only ones left in command when the rest of our heroes are turned into children.