The finale was ok I guess, but damn if those last fifteen minutes didn't feel tacked on. Everything from the scene where Booker and Burnham leave Saru's wedding on felt like it was rewritten because they knew the show was canceled.
I was happy that they brought Owo and Detmer back for that final flashback scene, but it was another reason the scene felt tacked on since they were nowhere to be found at Saru's wedding. Felt like they called the actresses back last minute, as they should have. Even though they didn't do shyt the whole show, they had both been there since season one, and I was already disappointed in how they were written out in the second half of the season.
Also, that flashback scene on the bridge did not have the emotional weight it was intended to, as most of the supporting cast was horribly underutilized. None of the bridge crew did anything of note the whole series, and we don't know the fates of any of the characters besides Saru and Tilly, and we don't even know what the aftermath of the Progenitors' mission was.
I had been saying this whole season that it was obviously not intended to be the final season until it got canceled, and this episode really proved it with those last fifteen to twenty minutes. You could tell they definitely wanted (and needed) at least one more season to truly give the show a proper send off.
Once Prodigy and Lower Decks end later this year it'll leave Strange New Worlds as the only remaining Trek show of the Paramount+ era.
