What Is Starfleet?

Leave it to the writers of Strange New Worlds to come up with a pretty decent premise for an episode but then proceed to screw it all up. The episode has an Encounter At Farpoint feel to it, but unfortunately the story kept getting interrupted with this documentary style episode. Ortega's brother is such a pointless character, which made the episode kind of pointless. You never really feel for the creature as the story is constantly interrupted. Just 3 episodes left in season 3. What else can the writers screw up?

This episode had the makings of a really solid Strange New Worlds entry. The core plot-freeing an intelligent life form from servitude to another race-was classic Trek, full of moral weight and the kind of ethical dilemma that has always made the franchise shine.

Unfortunately, the writers chose to present the story in a "documentary" style, with a cameraperson following the crew around and conducting interviews. For me, this pulled me out of the narrative rather than drawing me in. The constant reminder of the camera's presence made it feel less like a natural Trek adventure and more like a gimmick.

It's a shame, because the underlying story was a good one, and told in a more traditional format, it could have ranked among the better episodes of the season. Instead, the execution turned what could have been a great episode into just a fair one.

This really could have been an excellent story. But the concept/format allowed it to go to waste. It's as simple as that. Now that there are only 10 episodes per season it seems to me, there isn't time for all these gimmicks. We need good rock solid stories straightforwardly told (which this could easily have been) please.

I'm not sure why there is often a compulsion to create documentary-style episodes on fiction shows, but they always fall flat. This is no different. The questions asked by the interviewer are so juvenile and offensive that it's hard to tell if it's a consequence of bad writing, or intentional to display his ignorance. The questions the crew put up with wouldn't have been tolerated in any reality. The amount of stuff that was "declassified" that would not have been was silly. I would've rated it higher if the premise had been a documentary that Starfleet refused to release.

The moral ambiguity that was the main theme with the episode was this episode's redeeming quality.

TV shows need to stop doing this. It's the lowest rated episode every season when The Rookie does it. It's gonna be the lowest rated episode for this season. Stop doing documentaries of your characters in TV shows. It's really stupid. Such a waste of an episode. The only thing you can say that's good about this episode is that it's visually stunning, looks great.