A fabulous ending to the intro chapter of USS Discovery's trip through the stars and time. It is not the question about where they've landed, but when and in what universe. The stars might have moved and vast regions of space might have changed as a result of things happening different. Star Trek is boldly going where no-one has ventured before - if you don't count in the Fringe and few other series (including ST TOS -> DS9 & Enterprise), but the way they're doing this is far different to what we've seen before.
Even in the Fringe, the Primary Timeline got more attention, where as with the ST Discovery we're looking the space from a totally different angle to what we are used to. Maybe that's why the spore drive doesn't get a mention in the timeline as the Star Fleet Admiralty buried the whole project as too dangerous to be attempted again. That is how I see them going forward and dodging all the questions on the future as why the sporedrive hasn't become the main way to travel through the universe.
However, and wherever they're currently might as well explore the whole thing as long as they can avoid temporal deprecation in the driver like Stamets. Eventually if the Pilot is organic and not some mechanical device there is going to be wear. That happens to everything and dear Captain Lurka truly pushed his luck.
There isn't much input from the Engineering as how much Discovery wears out during the jumps, but it certain that is happens as they have whole compliment of people working on the ship and its systems. It's not just "measly scientists" whose living there even though we don't see rest of the crew. So in there, Lurka kind of made a mistake with his speech.
Will L'rell take a role in the Discovery as it's quite obvious they're going to get back any time soon? Possibly forever. But that makes me think about Sarek and other roles that they've lent from the Primary Timeline. Hypotechically Michael Burham should be able to contact the Vulcan Ambassador and alert them to the fact, they can't come back.
The defeat of the Klingons was also far too easy. Life sign masking technology we have never seen before or since.
You might not remember or it hasn't been as prominent but they've dappled with this thing before. Sometimes they cannot get clear readings. Other times it gets distorted and causes drama. Thing is the notion is wrong. If they've technology to detect lifesigns, they certainly can simulate it. In the advance team case, the Klingon becomes much stronger and it should stand out in the sensor logs. I really doubt they had people monitoring their internal sensor logs for abnormal strong Klingon presence that could indicate that they've been borded.
All of that would have quite complicated to translate into drama on small screen, while it would be much easier to present in the written form. So please don't say they haven't because they definitely have. In the Next Generation this feature was often done by rocky and/or radioactive elements. In the Deep Space 9, life masking disturbances blanket the area known as the Bad Lands.
I'm looking forward to what they can find and what they can get away in the upcoming episodes. This isn't bad thing, ST Discovery is really nice addition in the small screen for the serious SF lovers as you said.
