I wouldn’t be quite so hard on them. Any fiction requires the willing suspension of disbelief at some level. It’s not that the probe didn’t report back, but that it never showed up 85 million years later. A reasonable test of the wormhole, actually. You just have to believe that they devised a probe that was somehow likely to survive that long. A tall order, to be sure, but some clever folk might figure it out. Sending through a rocket capable of getting to the moon would be a monumental project, and not really feasible.
I’m pretty sure, though, like others have said that the “alternate time line” will turn out not to be.
I too am getting pretty tired of the whole “mankind ruined the earth” meme. I’ve decided to ignore once again, like with FireFly which turned out to be awesome, and just sit back and enjoy it.
That's pretty much what I do and just hope a series runs to a logical end without being terminated.......
My philosophy is that any series offered up for run on any of the networks should have a reserve episode available that offers a credible ending in the event the series is terminated by the network.