So, was this even a season premiere? It felt like an episode of the previous season or from the middle of a season, I literally feel nothing is new, except for the intro. And there's more:
-So, is La'an on leave or resigned from Starfleet? April tells Spock that La'an is on "voluntary leave from Starfleet for months", but 40 seconds later, April calls her "former member of Starfleet". So... which is true?
-Why is everyone on the Enterprise so hostile to the maintenance crew? Is this ship for high schoolers? This is isn't their personal room or locker, they're checking systems and ship integrity so your ship doesn't explode from a loose bolt or a forgotten sandwich on an antimatter container. It's like getting angry at the car mechanic for doing the yearly vehicle inspection on your car systems. Except your car is borrowed. Or was it supposed to be comedy? I'm not seeing any jokes...? I don't get the point of that scene. Also, if the ship is in dock, undergoing inspections and maintenance, why is Uhura still monitoring any transmissions? Shouldn't that be automatically transferred to traffic control or its equivalent? She didn't know that La'an was trying to send a message to the Enterprise.
-A main character has to steal the Enterprise to help someone they knew, stuck at the edge of Federation space, who sent a cryptic coded message, warning of a possible threat to the Federation... and then later a rogue Starfleet and Klingon faction work in secret to restart the war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire... they're just gonna recycle the same old plots forever, aren't they?
-So the Federation false flag ship the Klingons assembled in that cave is a Crossfield-class ship? At first I was like, did they rebooted the design of the Discovery? But then I remembered that the saucer section can be detached, so maybe the Klingons got a couple of Starfleet wrecks and kitbashed them together. And you can't tell me that the Enterprise blowing up the Crossfield wasn't a subtle "up yours" to Discovery...
-Oh, so now people can survive in a vacuum without freezing solid for like 15 seconds? I guess Vadic must not have been told that, so much for "the Changelings' genetic tampering weakened them".
-How many alien tourists does Earth get? After Ancient Aliens and 1950s Vulcans, now there's Travellers, Lanthanites, etc. Earth is pretty crowded.
There were a few alright moments, like M'Benga's past, Spock leading the ship in battle and having to take a tough choice, finally some normal Klingons, but overall, if you'd tell me this episode was the season premiere, I won't believe you.