OMG... where to even start with what I just saw.
I know you won't be replying for some time, but here goes anyway:
I felt exhausted after watching that finale, and for all the wrong reasons. In fine Abrams tradition, Star Trek has fully joined the Star Wars universe in that every Starfleet ship is basically a Star Destroyer, carrying hundreds of combat drones and several squadrons of combat shuttles. So much for an organization that is ostensibly about science and exploration. Not only that, like the stupid rollercoaster turbolifts that make another appearance, it seems no one that writes this show has any concept of how space and volume works. Discovery and Enterprise have a finite size, yet they are able to disgorge hundreds of smaller ships because.... huh? How? Where are they keeping all this stuff? The Enterprise's engineering hull alone would have to be a vast hollow cylinder to house that much hardware believably. Guess she doesn't need engines. Also, where is all that stuff when Kirk takes over in just a few years? And again with the cutesy repair and cleanup bots... is George Lucas secretly a consultant on this show?
As for the rest of the space battle, I really miss the grandiose spectacles of the TNG and DS9 days when stately starships traded fire in a reasonably measured pace. Now we have a cacophony of flashy visuals and hard to follow action that seems to be competing with itself for how many lights and explosions and fast-moving objects we can have on the screen all at once. The gazillion fighter ships on both sides was just silly overkill, and about as far away as you can get from a Star Trek space battle as you can. Don't even get me started on the Kelpians going from peace-loving, planet-bound dwellers, to expert fighter pilots in a matter of days. At least they got a couple of things right: the Klingons are finally flying the D-7 cruisers, and the Enterprise was firing proper phaser beams, not staccato SW turbo laser battery fire. Yay.
Then there's all the absurdities in the plot and marvellous (not) coincidences in the plot. A blast door that can only be manually operated from one side? Ok... convenient. Stamets gets impaled right on cue so that Culber can have his moment of epiphany and stay behind? Yep, never saw that coming in a show that never sticks to the decisions it makes. So all it took to defeat the powerfully godlike AI than can remotely control an entire fleet was a... magnet? You're telling me these geniuses can figure out spore drives and time travel space suits, but they couldn't think of shoving Control into a magnetic chamber before? Also, if the point of taking Discovery into the future was because it was the only way to get it out of Control's reach, why did they still bother going through with it once Control was neutralized?!? Did I miss something super obvious here? The whole point was to get away from him!!! Supposing for one moment that Control is not 100% neutralized, then why would take the threat with you when the idea was to get so far away that you have to go to the future? They should have at least jettisoned the nanites into space, scattering them apart with a transporter or something. What an incredibly stupid series of plot holes!
Of course, then we have Georgiou going into the future with them. Isn't she supposed to be getting her own show? Since I doubt that will be set in the future also, they've already given up an important plot point that, A) either Discovery comes back at some point, or B) she gets bored with the whole thing and steals the time suit and comes back alone.... or with Leland? Or perhaps she takes Leland to the past and orchestrates the rise of the Borg herself? If true, this is a show that is stretching connections and fan-service well past the breaking point. Who knows, and I'm not sure I care at this point as a show based on that character was always a stupid idea. The writers seem so enamoured with the Terran Emperor and Section 31 in making them appear cool, edgy, and full of wit, that they completely gloss over the utter atrocities and horrors that they have engaged in. I guess we should shrug and recognize how adorable Georgiou is because she can deliver clever zingers, all the while just forgetting about the fact that she is a genocidal maniac with a taste for sentient species?!? Man, this is some evolved thinking that is beyond me.
Then there's the massive retcon of the century to discuss. The whole season's been leading to this moment where the writers and producers deliver Mea Culpa on their colossal short-sightedness with this series and attempt to rectify things by sweeping the USS Discovery under the galactic carpet. Anyone that claims that this was their plan from the start is a liar of Donald Trump proportions. They were in a corner with Burnham's existence and the spore drive and they knew it, so season 2 was designed around correcting those mistakes... because making a series that was set in the future to begin with was so very hard, wasn't it? Well, they made an admirable effort to fix things, except now we are expected to believe that the reason we've never heard of these people or this ship was because the crew of the Enterprise did a group pinky swear to stay quiet and lie to their superiors? Fine, I can go along with that given that Pike alone has the charisma to invoke that kind of loyalty, and Spock's logic is hard to beat.... except that all they are covering up is the fact that Discovery was destroyed rather than go into the future. Again, did I miss something here? The ship leaving the current timeline did not erase it from ever having existed, so what gives? Is all of Starfleet retconning itself by never mentioning that crew, Burnham's existence, or the ship and its spore drive? This is just beyond baffling to me. The whole thing sounded clever at first, but quickly falls apart when you shine even a little bit of light on it. I can see the meeting at Starfleet's top brass going something like this:
"Well, the USS Discovery was lost in battle with all hands. Time to hit delete."
"Say what?"
"It's our new policy here. You really should come to all the staff meetings. Any time one of our vessels meets an untimely demise, we henceforth completely and utterly expunge our databases and personal memories of any and all traces of its existence, and the crew... well, they never happened either. Makes it more neat and tidy that way, and we don't have to pay the record keepers overtime sorting all this stuff anymore. Oh, and send the memo to Mr. Atoz at Memory Alpha. We all know what a keener that guy is when it comes to this sort of stuff."
"Ok, I see... I think?"