WhenStar Trek: Section 31 beamed onto Paramount+ last week, it did so with a bit of a malfunctionand landed with an almighty thud. The firstStar Trek movie (streaming or otherwise) in years was immediately scathed by many critics, and now fan reactions have been similarly unkind, warpingSection 31 right into first place on the most unglamorous of lists. As Forbes reports,Section 31 now holds the honor of being the worst-rated Star Trek project, TV series or film, on critical aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, both in terms of both a rating from critics and from user input. Heres the full breakdown of both film and TV series ratings: Star Trek Movie Rotten Tomatoes Ratings Star Trek: The Motion Picture:52% critics, 42% audience Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: 86% critics, 90% audience Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: 79% critics, 68% audience Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home:81% critics, 81% audience Star Trek V: The Final Frontier:23% critics, 25% audience Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: 83% critics, 83% audience Star Trek: Generations:47% critics, 57% audience Star Trek: First Contact: 93% critics, 89% audience Star Trek: Insurrection:55% critics, 44% audience Star Trek: Nemesis: 38% critics, 49% audience Star Trek (2009): 94% critics, 91% audience Star Trek Into Darkness: 84% critics, 89% audience Star Trek Beyond: 86% critics, 80% audience Star Trek: Section 31: 20% critics, 17% audience Star Trek TV Series Rotten Tomatoes Ratings Star Trek: 92% critics, N/A audience Star Trek: The Animated Series: 94% critics, 81% audience Star Trek: The Next Generation: 92% critics, 90% audience Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:91% critics, 89% audience Star Trek: Voyager: 76% critics, 80% audience Star Trek: Discovery:91% critics, 33% audience Star Trek: Lower Decks: 91% critics, 73% audience Star Trek: Picard:89% critics, 57% audience Star Trek: Prodigy:97% critics, 88% audience Star Trek: Strange New Worlds:98% critics, 79% audience Across the entire franchise, just one other entry comes even remotely close toSection 31 here in the form of the much-maligned Final Frontier (whatdoes God need with an extra Secret Spock Sibling?), in terms of either critical reaction, audience reaction, or potential disparity between those two ratings. Of course, as always when discussing Rotten Tomatoes, there are several caveats to remember: the first is that Rotten Tomatoes ratings are not a test score, but an average percentage of how many people gave a film or show a positive critique, numerically valued or otherwise: Section 31 isnt the equivalent of a 2/10, instead that merely one in five critics rated it positively. Its also important to acknowledge that its a flawed system, especially when contrasting historical data prior to its launch in 1998 with data collected for contemporary material. This is even more of a case when it comes to audience ratings which suffer from a similar lack of reliable historical data as well as the issue that, prior to multiple recent attempts at overhauling how they are verified and collated, they were infamously repeatedly manipulated as part of review bombing harassment campaigns by a myriad of third parties and grifters in the culture war. (Case in point, Star Trek: Discoverys overwhelming disparity between critical and audience scores on the above list, a show that repeatedly faced bad-faith and racist backlash over the course of its run.) For as important as the site has become in both the entertainment industry and, for better or worse, the way people discuss media online, taking anything particularly definitive, positive or negative, comes with the acknowledgement of its flaws. All that said though, there probablyis something to take fromSection 31s largely negative reaction across both audiences and critics alike. Not only does it stand out within the oeuvre of Star Treks current streaming era (regardless of what detractors ofDiscovery say about producer Alex Kurtzmans shepherding of the franchise, by and large the majority of contemporary Star Trek has been received rather well), but it speaks to the long-simmering controversy of just what aStar Trek project that centers Section 31a concept that was controversial from the moment it was introduced in Deep Space Nineshould look like. Going in, the movie had a high expectation to justify any potential glamorization of an infamously insidious group, one whose very existence was seen as tantamount to a wholesale rejection of Star Treks broader utopian aims. Instead, it took an arguably even worse stance than that glamorization in simply doing nothing at all with the opportunity, saying little about either Section 31 as an entity or even reallyStar Trek more broadly.Star Trek stands at a bit of a crossroads that its modern age hasnt really seen in quite a while. The recent conclusions ofPicard,Discovery, andLower Decksarguably the flagships that defined the franchises boom in the streaming eraas well as the uncertain future of Prodigy after its controversial uncoupling from Paramount+, leavesTrek in a strange place.Strange New Worlds, one of the most warmly received projects of this era now stands with just a handful of upcoming projects, and, as has been the case since Beyonds release, whatever the hell is going on withStar Trek movies remains so nebulous Captain Janeway could go look for coffee inside of it all.Trek neededSection 31 to prove that it could thrive in the streaming movie format as it navigates this moment of uncertaintyand the final frontier still could, but it wouldve been much better served if it hadnt started with such a fundamental misfire of an idea. Want more io9 news? 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