I joked about the lighting and how in recreating the Enterprise set that had blown so much of the budget they couldn’t afford lightbulbs.

For real though it just clicked for me that I think they were trying for a cheap trick of contrast. It’s not the more modern set design (Strange New Worlds is modern and very well lit), it’s that they wanted the old set to look bright and warm to help provoke the warm fuzzy feelings. So new set is lit in cold colours (barely), old set is lit in warm colours (a lot).

Cheap trick.

And they went way too far with it.

I think I have said this about relative power levels of characters before. If you want your hero to shine, build them up, don’t make everyone else stupid/inept so they can win. It doesn’t feel good.

The Enterprise return would have been ‘a moment’ regardless. Have more faith in the old girl.