It really is skin-suit Star Trek, with momentary glimpses of what it could have been.
It's remarkable to note that by removing every single last overweight female character they would have greatly improved the episode. Even the new-age hippie captain would be tolerable, if she wasn't surrounded by female dumplings.
It really is astonishing that they insist on including all of these 'Silly Tilly' effigies. As if 'Silly Tilly' from Discovery wasn't bad enough.
It's also funny that you kind of/sort of want to watch Star Trek Discovery after watching this episode. Just to see what caused this 'Burn', but then you remember all the trender stuff and you instantly lose all interest.
And then you remember Stacey Abrams as 'president of earth' and all the other horrid stuff comes rushing back.
Feels like drinking from a poisoned well.
Edit: Also, fun fact. Andor season 1 episode 1 autoplays after this Star Trek episode. Apparently, you can watch the first season (or first couple of episodes) of Andor for free on Youtube.
I'm not going to defend this but, what did you expect?
We are 10-15 (maybe 25 if you're really cynical) years into Garbage Trek. Whatever they call "Star Trek" today actually sucks ass and has done so for a generation. Watching it, even to mock it, is like dunking on Hallmark movies.
Now I want to have a "Bad Hallmark movie night" with the guys for a few laughs.
I expected an improvement, actually. After so many abortive projects, and a new president in the White House, it's usually the time to chance course. But unfortunately it was just the latest double-down on feminist-DEI garbage.
The amount of "I watched gay porn and I'm very disappointed it wasn't filled with beautiful women having heterosexual sex" type of posts I see here and in social media, is really weird.