WHY WE LIKE IT: Celia Rose Gooding's emotional performance.
WHY WE DON'T: The worst kind of documentary.
REVIEW: We knew Beto would be aboard doing a documentary at some point, and doing a whole episode AS that documentary is an interesting offbeat premise for an episode. Unfortunately, I think Beto is TERRIBLE at it (well, he does use A.I. to run his cameras and make choices for him). His film is one of those awful Netflix things that at first tries to be controversial, trying to prove a prejudiced point (and I hate those and how cheesily they're put together). It's about a highly-classified mission, which Starfleet would never have allowed in the first place. And eventually, he turns the camera on himself as the doc starts to show that his premise was wrong. Ugh. By the end, I was just begging for Uhura to dump his ass. His gotcha journalism in the talking heads pieces are cringe, especially with her, a real betrayal, and how was this ever going to be "unbiased" when his sister is one of the particulars. This thing would be booed out of film festivals and end up on late night Fox in the 90s along with When Animals Attack and America's Dumbest Criminals.
What saves the episode to a point is that it's a meat and potatoes Trek story about a no-win scenario that can only be solved by ethics (give or take the Lovecraftian creature at the center of it). From an outside, partial, perspective (Beto is essentially one of the ensigns in TNG's Lower Decks here), Starfleet seems up to no good, and the mission, as stated, is an impossible ethical conundrum and, on paper, would force them to contribute to crimes against humanity in its largest sense. What Beto doesn't know is that they are working hard to find an alternative, and the latitude given Starfleet crews, allows them to pursue it, orders be damned.
Things we discover in the talking heads include Spock cutting himself as a child (how many times does he run away into the desert, as this isn't Yesteryear's instance?), trying to remove his human half. This is a different motivation than for humans (arguably), but I do find it a little heavy to dump so many childhood problems on Spock (the learning disability referenced in Discovery was another). He was already struggling with his mixed heritage, why does he need more baggage? Better is the contention, in the A-plot, that Spock's psionic tricks throughout The Original Series, but rarely seen in others (Tuvok and T'Pol, for example, though Sybok obviously had powers) is a function of certain studies not embraced by most Vulcans (see Secondary Watching) because of health risks. Perhaps his human half means he's less vulnerable to brain damage. Uhura's less sensitive human brain was able to take the alien's contact longer, as we see.
And though I was critical of the way Beto treated Uhura in the episode, Celia Rose Gooding gives an amazing performance, vulnerable and emotional, but also empathetic (to a fault), and I'm always a big fan of Uhura being critical to a mission. Starfleet has always been about communicating with the alien, not fighting it, and that's her role. It should be celebrated, and SNW usually does right by her (just not in this relationship). In terms of acting, all the regulars do well, not just under questioning, but with the Pyrrhic nature of their eventual victory. Duty involves cost and that's the real point of this story. Beto's hurt feelings require us to feel invested in some kind of issue between him and Erica that just hasn't really been addressed prior to this episode.
SECONDARY WATCHING: Examples of Spock's powers, as used in this episode, include his sensing the Vulcan ship's death in The Immunity Syndrome and mind control through cavern walls in The Omega Glory. They eventually phase this kind of stuff out leaving only the ubiquitous mindmeld (and associated tricks like katra manipulation), but What Is Starfleet? provides a strong explanation for them existing.
LESSON: Judge not, lest ye be judged.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: While the documentary look creates a visually-striking episode, I think it would have worked better as a straight story, talking heads replaced with conversations, even with Beto filming seen from a third-person omniscient perspective. As is, I resent the distracting style and Beto's annoying POV on matters. I'm still mostly focused on the ethical dilemmas and Gooding's powerful performance.
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