[Spoilers mainly pertaining to the framing device, not the underlying plot]
spoiler
This episode asks a lot of important questions about the nature of Starfleet and its long-critiqued dance with settler colonialism, but instead of answering any of them, the documentary suddenly does a disjointed U-turn and tells us Starfleet is good because the crew have fun together and the captain plays the guitar and cooks them up a slab of meat (did the writers forget Spock doesn't eat meat?). No need to dig deeper or continue to question why seemingly everything the crew does is classified top secret in a supposedly open and egalitarian society.
The documentarian is clearly horrible at his job since his documentary has nothing insightful to say and his journalistic integrity immediately collapses when his crush questions his loyalty to Starfleet's mission and casts him out.
Seriously, how did he go from making an edgy expose to making mushy Starfleet propaganda in the last 2 minutes of his film? Simply because Uhura accused him of being angry at Starfleet? So, an expose of Starfleet's flagship and its mission ended up being a dull rebuke of the insecurities of the person behind the camera, who upon being confronted about his insecurities, immediately tanks his project and turns it into a maudlin video greeting card?
Even if we accept that paper-thin premise, why wouldn't he go back and cut the whole documentary to be uniformly craven propaganda instead of merely the last couple minutes? Was the documentary airing live..?
Really feels like 10-15 minutes of the episode is missing, the part that would have made the ending feel earned or at least justify the premise of the episode and its season-long build up.
I think the most discomforting thing of all is that the writers of this episode, much like the episode's central character, are really putting out blatant propaganda themselves, telling us not to question authority, to fall in line with the military hierarchy and gush over our fearless military leaders because they know what's best for society. To hell with journalistic integrity, with transparency and all the other uncomfortable obstacles to the Starfleet charter.
By presenting the documentarian character as an untrustworthy fool for daring to question the mission of this expansionist Galaxy-wide military/government, the writers betray every science fiction author in history who has used the medium as a tool for biting, daring social commentary.
It's almost like the writers read all the critiques over the decades from anti-authoritarians about Starfleet and decided to officially declare "Yes! Star Trek is imperialist propaganda, deal with it. Oh, and have some steak, you Vulcan hippie."
I understand it's hard for American TV writers in the imperial core to grapple with American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, missionaryism and the underlying violent imperialism and cultural displacement it all comes with, but why ask the question if you're not prepared to actually examine the issue in even the most cursory way? If you're going to pathetically conclude imperial expansionism is the bee's knees, and only a fool would dissent against the altruistic space cops and their mission to spread their system of government across the cosmos?
Is this really a message a science fiction writer needs to deliver? Like we can't get it from every other CBS show from NCIS to FBI?
Easily the worst episode of the series, and the weirdly short run-time indicates they knew it in the editing room and there was just no way to make it work. Truly a shame this is what passes for social commentary in 2025.
Jessie Gender's review pointed out that it's by far the shortest episode of the season, probably because it got re-edited to remove all context with the underlying conflict, to avoid making any commentary on Israel/Palestine.