If there are ANY instances in which things like plot, character and narrative have taken a back seat to serving a particular agenda then the audience will disengage. You have given it the benefit of the doubt - but the audience scores have spoken. You cannot sacrifice story for politics, regardless of what your politics happen to be. Critics have missed the point, they're missing the point across the board, theatre, tv, film. Just because something is politically interesting, doesn't mean it should replace story. In theatre we've seen the rise of the 'identity writer' rather than the 'quality story' - it's leading to great scores from the critics, often cut from the same cloth, but dwindling audiences. In TV, it's led to the sort of scores you've highlighted.

Trans stories and other progressive talking points need to be gently woven into the fabric of TV and skilfully put into stories, not hammered into narratives under the political bias of sycophantic critics and lefty-love ins in the writers room. I enjoyed Sex Education, I think Laurie Nunn has done a great job over the last few years- but I switched off half way through the first episode of Season 4 and wrote the whole season off (and it seems like I'm not alone). I can tell when I'm being told what to think under a paper-thin guise of narrative. And even if I happen to agree with the general message of inclusion (and I do), I didn't sign up for a vision based propaganda pamphlet. I signed up for well-told stories. I have zero tolerance for preaching in any form of entertainment, it shows either a lack of skill or a lack of judgment - in this case, the latter and I'd like to know whether it was Nunn, Netflix or groupthink that nose-dived it into a commercial flop.