This one goes out to the geeks among us. (FYI: We're everywhere.)
British television icon Doctor Who has found something other than Daleks and Cybermen to terrify us: microplastics.
In the episode that aired Feb. 2, the sci-fi show had the Doctor and her companions tackling a global health threat that ended up being linked to tiny plastic particles that have been at the center of some very high-profile sustainability issues.
The show, which began airing more than 50 years ago, often taps into current issues to explore the state of the future or our own history. A few weeks ago, the Doctor came across a dead planet, which happened to end up being Earth after climate change. While The Daily Mail noted the most recent episode left some viewers feeling they were being "preached at," many critics enjoyed the take.
"The problem of microplastics isn't just very real, but plays on excellent Doctor Who tropes when it comes to mysterious threats — it's something we are all familiar with, it's a wake-up call about our own impact on the world in which we live, and it's also a threat that is ever present, just out of the corner of our eye," wrote James Whitbrook on the website IO9.
