I think a lot of the species at least agree with the idea of a eugenics ban after seeing the records of how disastrous it was for Earth, regardless of their own struggles.

Ah, I'd missed that detail. I was on the fence about whether or not it was a trans allegory because it didn't initially feel like there were as many similarities in her story to being trans as there was to homosexuality and being an undocumented immigrant but upon further consideration I have to agree. Though it does seem to me like it is also about those other groups I mentioned. I suppose it's a bit of a catch-all (which worked great).

What a beautiful episode. The message was great and it wasn't ambiguous enough for people to really misinterpret or miss it while still remaining an indirect allegory for current times. The allegory was clearly about either homosexuality or undocumented immigrants and I appreciate that people from either group can likely relate to this episode. As a gay guy I have to say I definitely did.

Also, the scene with Spock's "outburst" was hilarious and I loved seeing the (on the surface) emotionless Spock once again.

Overall I loved the episode and I'm very glad to see one I love after personally disliking the previous one.

Good to know, thank you!

~~I'm not entirely sure if I have to spoiler tag this since this is in the discussion thread but I will anyways since the rule doesn't say the threads are an exception to the rule.~~ Edit: Thanks ValueSubtracted for the clarification on this.

Really disliked this one. And I loved just about all of season 1.

One of the main things for me is that the pacing felt far too quick.

For instance, when getting the injection of the super serum, they only briefly mentioned M'Benga's issue with it and quickly moved on without any sort of issues beyond that brief line.

I also have some issues with the characterization and general way the crew acted. They seemed a lot less professional in this and unlike an actual Starfleet crew.

Spock's emotional side, while I suppose justified in-universe, made him feel a lot less "Spock" to me. I was fine with his behavior in season 1 but this just feels a bit far, to the point of him being nearly unrecognizable. His "I would like the ship to go. Now" make me physically recoil in cringe with how unfunny I found it to be.

M'Benga and Chapel just beating up a bunch of bad guys three separate times felt incredibly unnecessary and I fail to see any sort of reason there couldn't have been some sort of clever escape rather than bland, mindless fighting. I think I skipped a whole minute total of them just punching the bad guys with how long the scenes drew on for. And the way M'Benga's issue with the super serum was just brushed over with a fleeting line came across as poorly executed.

La'an outdrinking a klingon seemed rather ridiculous and all I could think of was that it seemed like a bad D&D introduction to a stereotypical "cool" character. And then her burping? Did they really need a burp joke in this? It came across as uncharacteristically juvenile for the show.

That said, I did like a bit of it. Visual effects were great as always and I appreciated the slightly different intro. I'm glad the cliffhanger from last season both wasn't immediately resolved or dwelled upon too much. The false flag operation was a neat idea and it was cool to see yet another type of ship. The Klingons looked and sounded perfect and much more similar to how they were in 90s Trek, I'm glad the design was changed to this from their design in Discovery.

Overall, I very much disliked it, despite a few positive elements to it. No hate, I just disliked those parts of it I talked about.

Finally, this isn't any sort of issue I take with the show but they said that the false flag ship was Crossfield class. However, it didn't look anything like a Crossfield class beyond the ring in the saucer. Did Starfleet change the Crossfield class to a different design?