2 Ups And 7 Downs From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.7 — What Is Starfleet?

Prelude to Axanar, this wasn't, but the general in-universe form, including interviews, was reminiscent. Axanar did a better job of being a documentary, beginning with the rather clever, "The United Federation of Planets Historical Society, in association with Memory Alpha, presents…"

To make his documentary, it was more than handy for Beto that practically every screen, everywhere, up, down, and behind, on the Enterprise was a recording device in full (U)HD. We also found out that "Starfleet's in-ship security log cameras record when a ship is at an alert status". No need for the Talosian projection in The Menagerie, after all! Little brother is watching you.

It is not surprising, however, nor even novel, that a starship should record what goes on aboard. Later, in the 24th century, Seven of Nine instructed the computer to "deactivate all sensors within this room [the astrometrics lab]" to keep her conversations with Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay confidential in The Voyager Conspiracy. Personal (or other) logs were also often filmed, and could easily be erased. See Captain Sisko for the greatest example of that.

Finally, the documentary genre is hardly new to science fiction television. Stargate SG-1 did it beautifully, and movingly, in Heroes, Parts 1 & 2. In slightly different but similar style, largely via clips from previous episodes framed by recordings face-to-camera, Stargate: Atlantis had Letters from Pegasus. The reimagined Battlestar Galactica also did its documentary episode in the aptly named second season episode Final Cut.