Cronenberg as Dr. Kovich makes this episode watchable, finally a serious and emotionally mature character as expected for Starfleet, you know... the service supposed to be filled with Galaxy's very best and all. Finally Burnham and Booker stop acting like unstable teenagers... Finally some logic and duty opposed to crying, feelings and kumbaya (magically solving everything).
The premise and conflict within it was really good as well, but the execution was poor, as usual. How come Burnham and Booker are standing as equals to heads of entire planets and species? Couldn't we see some interesting ships, species representatives, actual opinions from said species?? Again the galaxy feels so damn small and insignificant.
Gray and Adira continue being the cringe and hollow LGBTQ quota. Adira used to be this super genius, that's apparently all gone now. A trill with hundreds of years of life experience? All there is to her is being trans.
Dax was non binary back in 90s as well, but she was an incredible character played by great talent too. You can literally skip every second of Adira and Gray and it will have zero effect on the story, what a joke. Way to go STD.