My biggest complaint with Live Action Trek vs the two Animation shows is that they seem obsessed with giving us a black ship on a black background. It’s nice to be given a reprieve, even if for only one episode.
I definitely prefer the darker version, it seems a lot less artificial. To me, the brighter ship looks rendered, as if I was looking at a video games' screenshot.
There's these things called "stars" most planets with life on them have them very close by in the cosmic scale of things, and if you look up pictures of the ISS under one you'll see it's actually quite bright...