If you don't think the episode is successful at demonstrating the fundamental goodness of the Federation & Starfleet despite the intial skepticism of Ortegas' brother, that's fine. I think it's a competent episode of this genre rather than a masterpiece like Babylon 5's 'And Now for a Word.'
Yes, that's my only point. That the documentary is irrelevant. The inner core of the episode as you describe it is fine - almost, anyway. It's like Caretaker, Devil in the dark, Encounter at Far point, Equinox.
Here are the reservations: 1) the crew are a obeying orders they have suspicion are illegal. 2) Starfleet is bringing in a animal that might be tortured 3) Pike does not stop the mission when you hera tells him that she can communicate with the animal.
*Uhura
See, I don't think it's irrelevant. Freedom of speech & the fact that people don't have perfect information means that people can suspect gov't of having bad policy even if the policy is formed w/good intentions & turns out to be flawed only because of lack of perfect information.
I think you wrote a better episode than what is actually shown. Beto made a bunch of claims without evidence. Then he witnessed the core episode. He initially may have been skeptical but why would he make up his mind without all the information? So that wouldn't make sense.
There's two separate things going on. One is his initial claims. The other is his investigation of the current core episode. But he did not know the facts. His initial claims are not ever refuted.
Your main problem is that Starfleet doesn't lie. And people would not suspect it to lie. So if they had imperfect information they would realize that. But you could use another planet to tell the story that you are describing. And it would be better than what we saw
Why did Starfleet not tell people the truth anyway? Come think of it.
Ortegas lacked perfect information as well which is why his documentary starts off skeptical before becoming less so. I really like the idea of this episode & I think its competent enough w/out being great--I say 7/10 for this reason (the episodes you mention I would ultimately rate as 8 or 9).
(Save for Encounter at Far Point which I think I like less than this SNW episode, though Far Point is still better than Discovery's pilot which I genuinely dislike).
Doing a documentary as means to talk about gov't policy is not something we see in those older superior episodes which so rightly are concerned w/compassion for non-humanoids. There is some sloppiness to this episode of SNW, but fundamentally it worked for me thematically & narratively.
But if it doesn't work for you because of the flaws of that episode, I get it!
I'd rate the episode as a 7/10 & the B5 episode a 10/10. I think it's a useful episode in pointing out in a near utopia, trying to make the right foreign policy decision when you don't have perfect knowledge can mean you sometimes have to change policy when you get knew info.
I appreciation the attempt to experiment w/style here while ultimately affirming the important of goodness & respect for then rights of sentient creatures. Not a masterpiece episode, but it worked for me. If it didn't work for you, I get it though.