You're right, there's likely to be a way to have refuted the author's points in a less sarcastic way - reading back, I must've been having a bad day, or was overly crotchety about the sort of progressive perfectionism this sort of article aspires to.

The main point I was attempting to make was that art of all kinds, including television, should not be subject to the subjective political whims of its audience. It is a problematic road for creativity to take - and one that will see the standard of writing and creativity drop. When you begin down this route, you're always going to be offending someone - and the push for progressivism has an equal validity to the push for conservatism in the court of public opinion.

Writers don't necessarily fall over themselves to ensure that the religious right aren't offended and they shouldn't with the intolerant-tolerant on the left either. This is true largely because the people at both extreme ends of their political ideologies will never be pleased because there's always room for improvement. Writers should write the story the best way they can, directors should direct the stories the best way they can and that's how it is.

The push for ideological conformity in the creative process is retrograde and having a fairly damaging effect on theatre, comedy and television overall. That includes changing and tweaking those character points you have mentioned. It gets inside a writer's head makes them think 'is what I wrote racist?' or 'is what I wrote transphobic' etc, that self censorship acts as a paralysing venom to the writing process until what you have a stilted mess.

Having said all that, thanks for continuing the discussion and I hope there's a second season too - it's a show moving things in the right direction without compromising its integrity.