I actually thought this episode was the best one of the whole series so far, and it was the first time the show felt like it clicked.
I wish we would have started with stories like this instead of the Federation-Klingon War, which was ultimately a mess and didn't say or accomplish anything.
That Federation-Klingon shyt from season one coulda been a damn movie of its own. But broken up over a season where we have to learn who the whole cast is, that’s a tough task. shyt, look at how many people from season 1 who were interesting characters are not around now.
You can’t introduce these radically new looking Klingons and then not take a deeper dive into who they are.
Also, I think for some, this show looking so damn advanced is a gift/curse. Even Pike’s uniform from the Enterprise made shyt from the series before it look primitive. I think these costume and set designers just refuse to make wack shyt for the sake of canon and the audience just has to really look at Discovery as “the beginning” even tho TOS visually looks laughable now. But we overlook it because we have to.