I like the season and still agree with you. At the least they need a lighter touch with the topical stuff so that it’s not so on the nose.

The problem with topical cartoons set a thousand years in the future is two fold. First, life moves fast but production times don’t. By the time an episode comes out either it’s no longer topical or at the least the talking points are a year old. South Park gets away with it because they have short production times (ok, they used to, I haven’t seen it in years so I don’t know if that’s still the case). Second, if it’s not dated, I promise the viewers are watching a funny space show to escape the constant bombardment and fatigue of it for 23ish minutes.

There are tropes that can be used from topical episodes that don’t have to be super on the nose. How people react to an epidemic is a super interesting thing to explore and we learned a whole lot in the last few years. But that can be explored while trusting your audience.

That’s the point of speculative fiction. Explore today’s problems in a way that forces you to think of tomorrow’s solutions.