Doctor Who returned last week with another first: Sacha Dhawan’s casting as the first person of colour to play the Doctor’s arch nemesis, the Master. The decision was broadly met with praise, but in darker corners of the internet the argument that the show has become too politically correct rages on.

“Too PC” has become a familiar jibe levelled at the sci-fi hit since 2018 when Jodie Whittaker became the Thirteenth Doctor and new showrunner Chris Chibnall took up the mantle. As well as the first woman to play the title role, their first series featured two BAME companions and episodes about Rosa Parks and the partition of India, written by Doctor Who’s first ever BAME writers. The show quickly found itself embroiled in a culture war, with talk of its apparent political correctness becoming commonplace (see the Twitter hashtag #notmydoctor). Whittaker and Chibnall were forced to defend the show against these claims before this series began: Whittaker reminded viewers that there’s “still racism within our current society”, and Chibnall added that “the Doctor and the show are beacons of compassion and empathy”.

Now, though, a different group of fans are railing against Doctor Who. Far from being too liberal, many believe this iteration has actually lost the morality that made the character so unique, and become problematic on social issues – engaging with them to an often offensive degree.

Dhawan’s debut, for example, was soured by a scene in which the Doctor weaponised his race against him. The episode, Spyfall, saw the new Master posing as a Nazi soldier in German-occupied Paris. The improbability of an Asian man being able to do this was explained by a “perception filter” – a device commonly used in the Whovian universe to cause others to see what they want to see, in this case hiding the Master’s ethnicity from the Nazis. The Doctor escaped the Master by framing him as a British double agent, then jammed his filter, leaving him open to both the retribution and the racism of the Nazis.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A storyline too far? ... Vinette Robinson as Rosa Parks in Doctor Who. Photograph: Coco Van Oppens/BBC

It’s not the first time the writing of ethnic minority characters has seemed questionable; Sharon D Clarke’s character Grace O’Brien and the mother of Lenny Henry’s character Daniel Barton, played by Blanche Williams, were both fridged almost immediately after being introduced. Henry has also spoken about the limitations of Doctor Who’s diversity; in a radio interview in December, broadcast prior to his appearance in the New Year special, he said the bosses “would rather have a dog do Doctor Who than a black person”.

Elsewhere, there’s an often apathetic engagement with the political climate. In the finale of Chibnall’s inaugural series, the Doctor’s companion Graham, played by Bradley Walsh, told the Doctor he wanted to kill Tim Shaw, a genocidal alien who had murdered his wife. The Doctor argued that even if done in self-defence, this would make Graham “the same” as Tim Shaw. It was an especially uncomfortable message at a time when those fighting fascism are often condemned as being as bad as the fascists themselves, for example in Donald Trump’s remarks after Charlottesville, when he equated white nationalists with those speaking out against them.

Another episode focused on Kerblam, an Amazon-a-like delivery company. The story reflected real-world mistreatment of workers, but while many viewers expected a satire of exploitative capitalism, the real villain was revealed to be a maintenance man, who was killing in protest at poor working conditions. This led the Doctor to claim that “systems aren’t the problem”, just people who “use and exploit the system” – thus refusing to engage with real-world suffering.

Doctor Who has had a strong history of LGBT+ representation since its return in 2005, including series-long lesbian companion Bill Potts in 2017. Executive producer Matt Strevens promised the show’s LGBT+ representation would continue, with characters from “across the spectrum”. However, representation in Chibnall’s era has been severely lacking so far. Characters have repeatedly been introduced as LGBT+, only to be promptly killed off. In the 2019 New Year special, a security guard referred to his boyfriend in his second line – and was killed by a Dalek just seconds later. The most prominent LGBT+ character in a Chibnall-penned episode, Angstrom, revealed her sexuality by referring to her dead wife. This is an unnerving pattern, and a common trope in media representation of LGBT+ people more widely. An episode featuring an alien man giving birth was criticised as being part of the “PC agenda”, when in reality it felt more like a lazy attempt at trans inclusion.

The fans decrying the show as too PC have been lost – and it’s a loss that should not be mourned. But the show has many loyal progressive fans, too. The Doctor may always have been a beacon of compassion and empathy, but too many of us are wondering where it’s gone.