I respected this episode a lot more than I enjoyed it. It opened very, very weak, but it closed quite well - something which I am sure was by design to show Beto's growth as a documentarian. Several levels to consider here, so we'll start at the bottom and work our way out.
The actual crisis within universe was a pretty classic, by-the-numbers Trek conundrum, very similar to a number of early TNG stories in particular. The ship interacts with what's first considered a dumb animal, and then realizes over the course of the episode it's a sentient being with its own wants and desires, and the initial orders were something that they not only cannot follow with a clean conscience, but that the original mission must be aborted. I liked that Starfleet (off camera) gave Pike the okay to shift the mission - it helped showcase that Beto's starting precept (that Starfleet was a military like any other) was in fact a flawed assertion. The episode managed to weave every regular cast member into the story pretty well as well. I liked they brought up Spock's "esper" abilities (one of the weird aspects of early TOS the later shows more or less forgot about), and I also liked that Uhura was given another shot at a "first contact" story. They went out looking for new life, and they found it. And the episode gives us our longest, best look at Ortegas - though it seems she's frankly not that deep of a character. TBH, she comes across as an average Jane on a ship of super-geniuses here.
The second layer here is the framing within Beto's documentary footage, and this is mixed, though I think it's on purpose. Beto is frankly an amateur, and it shows. The use of quick pans and weird angles for no particular reason are very jarring at the beginning of the episode, and get less so as he grows into his work. There is essentially zero musical accompaniment until about halfway through, when Beto apparently realizes he should start including a soundtrack. The start of the episode is very, very rough because it's all interview footage, where we're repeatedly told things, rather than shown them. But lots and lots of documentaries work this way, so I gave it a chance. I'm glad I did, because man, the story (and Beto as a filmmaker) grew.
The most "meta" aspect here is the character journey of Beto himself. He starts the story a cynic regarding both Starfleet and the Federation, for reasons that first appear unclear. More than once, I was left wondering why Starfleet would (freedom of information act or not) allow such an obvious hatchet job to go forward. But as he realizes that the system generally works - that it's responsive to real ethical concerns, and can pivot as new data comes in - his opinion changes, and he realizes how much of his initial framing was due to bias. In an odd way, he becomes the subject of the documentary, not the passive interviewer he intended.
There's a lot of brilliant stuff here, and the episode is great once it really gets rolling, with a conclusion that made me feel a feeling for sure. That said, we had to suffer through an incredibly rough (on purpose) first act to get there. In the end it would have been more enjoyable (albeit much more conventional) if we were just watching Beto make the documentary, rather than actually seeing the story through his personal camerawork.
I'm glad they took this risk. Hopefully, Trek is done with this for a few decades now.
