I suspect we'll see Spock go so far in the other direction over this series, to try to compensate, that it puts him back where TOS starts.

Yeah the 'line' stuff.. ugh. But hopefully he'll get a second chance and do better :D this was only his first day of his 3 day command! lol

My watch partners also thought that the super serum drug was a bit out there, but I think it was expressed well with M'Benga's trauma from the Klingon war, my guess is that he "always" carries that around because he was always under threat of being attacked on whatever moon it was he was stationed on, and sometimes had to use it. Old habits die hard, especially if you're going into action with the people you were at war with.

It's not like they had time to work out a diplomatic solution in this case. And likely they wouldn't have been able to. Pass off the diplomatic resolution to later in the plot, for Spock, the future master diplomat.

I imagine Pelia is going to be a gem of a character. I hope she gets more time, too.

Admirals tend to relax when it turns out that the actions the officers took were the correct path.

Also, the Klingons looked much more Discovery like than TOS like, but with the dark skin tone and hair from TNG.