“Loved this speech. It’s imperative to recognise this pivotal moment in time. If anyone complains about how this is ‘too political’, perhaps consider that climate change WILL effect you, regardless of your view on it.”

Another Twitter user added, “Just watched @DoctorWho‘s latest episode and what a good episode on #climatechange, reminding us that we should act now before our planet becomes inhabitable for all species. The future isn’t set, but we have to make our decisions now.”

However, the praise was not unanimous, with many viewers agreeing with the content of the speech but taking issue with the way it was delivered.

One Twitter user claimed, “I am trying so hard to be positive about #DoctorWho but it gets harder…#orphan55 was a really good sci fi idea, but the writing…you can present those sociological themes without delivering patronising speeches to the audience…”

Another user wrote, “It’s not the fact climate change was mentioned in the episodes. Doctor Who has always brought up political issues (etc), no-one is denying that. The issue is the complete lack of subtlety now, so much so that it feels very preachy – and depressing; no proper resolution in the ep.”

And a third user went on to tweet, “Well #DoctorWho was pretty good. However, that last monologue felt so shoved down my throat. The climate change centric episode would have worked better as a Sea Devil story later down the line in the series.”

Despite the divided reactions, one thing’s for sure – the episode certainly got people talking…

Doctor Who has a long history of wonderful, politically-tinged science fiction stories, but season 12’s “Orphan 55” wasn’t one of them. The two-part “Spyfall” was generally received very positively by fans and critics, praised for its surprise Master reveal, gripping action and fascinating plot developments. In the follow-up episode, team TARDIS go on a vacation that takes all of 60 seconds to turn hellish, as their tranquility spa retreat is revealed to be nothing more than an immersive dome on a dead, poisoned planet. To make matters worse, the locals are far from friendly, and the Doctor finds herself responsible for ensuring the safety of the surviving holiday-makers.

“Orphan 55” has a number of problems. The plot involved Whittaker’s Doctor marching everyone out into danger, achieving nothing, then marching them back again because the key to saving everyone was right where they started. The supporting cast featured British comedy actor James Buckley of The Inbetweeners fame, but gave him virtually no comedic material to work with. Nothing new was added to the “base under siege” format, with much borrowed from previous episodes and a twist taken from Planet of the Apes. And worst of all, the episode’s finale tried to make sucking your thumb look romantic. Despite this assortment of issues, the biggest problem viewers had with “Orphan 55” was its political overtones.

The episode’s titular planet is revealed to be Earth in the future, destroyed by global warming. Some fans have accused Doctor Who of becoming politically minded in recent years, but this suggestion ignores over 50 years of moral messages dating back to the debut of the Daleks. From nuclear weapons and the futility of war, to industrialization and and the destruction of indigenous species, Doctor Who has always been a series dripping in political allegory and liberally-minded morality and to deny so now is simply revising history to support a contemporary argument.

Where “Orphan 55” falls down is not in the message it chooses to put across, but in the execution. The best science fiction fare, even within Doctor Who, is often based in reality, using futuristic settings to illustrate problems facing the real world in any given era. Genuine concerns and real-world truths are concealed in a fantastical story and an exciting adventure, entertaining the viewer while inviting them to pick up on the more challenging subtext. So many of Star Trek‘s best adventures revolve around themes of war, invasion and diplomacy, while everything from Terminatorto Wall-Ehas provided commentary on artificial intelligence, the over-reliance on technology and the perils of capitalism. These examples, and many, many others, succeed by never venturing outside of their designated fictional world, trusting the viewer to draw the real-life parallels themselves without spelling things out.

Conversely, Doctor Who season 12, episode 3 breaks two fundamental rules. Firstly, it alters the show’s own mythology in order to better suit its political message. Having discovered Earth desolate and decayed in the future, the Doctor reveals that Orphan 55 is just one possible timeline – directly contradicting all of the times the Doctor had landed in the future. Suggesting that the futures the TARDIS visits are just “possible” rewrites all of Doctor Who canon, just so the episode can drive home to viewers that it isn’t “too late” to save Earth. There’s also a strange mind-meld with a Dreg for exposition’s sake. Perhaps even more jarring is the very final scene, in which the Thirteenth Doctor steps almost out of character and addresses her companions as if talking directly to the audience, delivering a speech explicitly from writer to viewer. Such overt methods shouldn’t be necessary in a well-crafted story that embeds its political themes in a more refined way.

To say Doctor Who has never before been political is grossly inaccurate, but where past stories would tell a compelling story around a strong moral theme, “Orphan 55” takes it message and repeatedly bludgeons the viewer into submission with it, nowhere more so than in the final scene. Whittaker’s speech might’ve been envisioned as stirring, but instead comes across as patronizing, and this not only spoils enjoyment, but distracts the audience from engaging with the episode’s environmental themes in the first place.

Doctor Who is best when it does two things; the first is weaving an interconnecting narrative through a season, giving each episode and character emotional payoff. The second is when this narrative accurately reflects and comments on present-day issues through a sci-fi lens. Orphan 55 is the first episode after series 12 crashed back into our lives with a heavy-handed two-parter that dispensed with a budding story arc brilliantly. There was a lot of information to process and a lot of questions to ask, so in that regard, the next episode is understandably a more episodic affair, with nary a Master of Timeless Child in sight. What it is, though, is a brilliantly woke sci-fi tale that gives Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor some of her best material ever to work with.

The start of the episode sees the TARDIS team take an un-planned, all expenses paid trip to the Tranquility Spa thanks to Graham (Bradley Walsh). But it becomes clear immediately that not much rest and relaxation will be taking place; the complex is under threat from viruses and a pending attack from vicious creatures, inhabitants of the barren planet the crew have landed on. The team is quickly separated, which means some much needed alone time with each of the companions, most notably Ryan (Tosin Cole). Sadly Yaz (Mandip Gill) takes a bit of a backseat in proceedings here, which is a shame.

There are undercover bombers, a militaristic regime and the fallout of nuclear war to deal with as the Doctor realises the spa has been built on an ‘Orphan’ planet – a planet so ravaged that its inhabitants have either fled to other worlds or died altogether. Or…have they? A Doctor Who episode is only as good as its monster – and luckily for us, the Dregs are a thing of beauty. And by beauty, we mean…you definitely hid behind the sofa when they showed up, right? It’s nice to see some practical effects in use, and the physicality of these meanies definitely heightened the fear factor.

Watching the episode unfold it was easy to see where they were going with it; a homage to isolationist sci-fi horrors Alien and Aliens. But then there’s a massive reveal which changes the tone of the episode entirely as the Doctor realises that Orphan 55 is actually Earth, and the Dregs are simply a mutated form of humanity after climate change and nuclear war made the planet inhabitable.  It’s a brilliant twist (that Planet of the Apes admittedly used first in 1968 but who honestly has an original idea anymore?)  Critics are sure to cry out at the show for becoming too ‘woke’ and turning the Doctor into a Greta Thunberg-esque figure and to that we say – so what? To see a prime-time, mainstream show such as Doctor Who take such a timely issue and turn it into an hour of television that never once feels preachy or whining is, to us, something that should be celebrated.

Verdict:  Orphan 55 transcends its easy-to-spot references and turns itself into a timely allegory tale that some will criticise for being too woke – we just appreciate that it was an extremely enjoyable episode of television and some of the best acting Jodie Whittaker has gotten to do yet. Doctor Who returns next Sunday at 7.10pm on BBC One. Got a showbiz story?