Episode 6

Investigating the connections between a missing astronaut in the Indian Ocean, birds going haywire in Peru and a US naval offi cer washed up on a Madagascan beach, the Doctor uncovers a deadly threat to the entire human race.

PAUL KIRKLEY

Praxeus has a convincing claim to being the most topical Doctor Who story ever broadcast - but probably not the topical Doctor Whostory its creators were expecting.

Pete McTighe and Chris Chibnall’s script - with its images of choked seabirds and urgent talk of microplastics poisoning our air, food and water - was written in 2018 and is very much a product of its era. It was a year in which teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg captured the world’s attention with her school strike protest, the fi rst Extinction Rebellion demonstrations took place in London and the ‘Blue Planet eff ect’ - inspired by Sir David Attenborough’s latest TV blockbuster - saw a marked sea-change in the public’s attitude toward single-use plastics.

None of which was any less critically important by the time Praxeus hit our screens on 2 February 2020. But three days earlier, the World Health Organisation had declared the emerging coronavirus pandemic “a public health emergency of international concern” - at which point, this tale of a deadly new pathogen sweeping the world began to look even more disturbingly as if it had been ripped from the headlines.