There's a persistent criticism in fandom about Star Trek series that depict Starfleet as too emotional, not following orders, just not very military in this quasi-military organization and I agree with that to some extent.
That certainly isn't the problem in this episode, where Our Heroes must mount a rescue mission, deal with a medical crisis, and fend off possible invasion, while thinking on their feet at a quick pace.
I loved the opening sequence where Pike is taking suggestions on creative ideas for dealing with the crisis at hand, batting away some and finally glomming onto the likely option. The other crises are also handled via quick, intelligent, creative thinking, which is only possible if the writers are creative and intelligent too.
Sure, the solutions are fake technology but they have plausibility, not just "re-route the frazzleblaster up the yin-yang" technobabble that Star Trek is infamous for.
However the need to wrap this all up in an hour (or 40 minutes to leave room for ads) means that the overall solution to the Gorn problem comes a bit out of left field and seems pretty convenient.
And the fast pace means that some "resolution" scenes that show people being rescued, patients being revived, etc must be dropped. The minute the characters devise the solution, the assumption is, the solution is implemented without the emotional catharsis of actually seeing it happen.
But overall this is what I want to see from Star Trek. This series is just so much more smartly written than other recent series on Paramount+.
