ATYPICAL

Hey, so I just binge watched Atypical on Netflix (not difficult because eight thirty-minute episodes do not constitute a series by any standard) and I wondered if anybody else has seen it yet and what you thought? Reviews have been mixed so far, but I enjoyed it.

Parents
  • If anyone hasn't seen this, it's billed as a coming-of-age comedy/drama for an 18-year-old boy with autism called Sam. It follows his life for 8 episodes, and that of his family, at the point where Sam decides he wants to get a girlfriend.

    I watched it with the family and we really enjoyed it. I read a few comments elsewhere where people were complaining it was either too stereotypical or not stereotypical enough :/ I guess maybe the things Sam was presented with didn't match up with those particular viewers' experience of autism?

    I thought it was a good representation. It showed quite a neat cross-section of life, both from Sam's perspective as the person with autism, but also from his family's perspective, of what it means to have someone with autism in your life, and how it impacts the family. It was also nice to see the support he had from the people who he relied on, and how he relied on different people for different things, and how this affected his relationships with others, such as (we don't have a <spoiler> tag in this forum to hide content, but this isn't really a spoiler) how he didn't "need" his dad for anything in his life until a few episodes in, and how that had made his dad feel.

    I like how it showed the different things Sam struggled with. There were certain things he excelled at, like his technical work at his job, but then he had to rely on his sister to do something as "simple" as hold his lunch money at school: that amazing contradiction we seem to have with the high-functioning. Actually that bit was ambiguous for me; I don't know if she held it because otherwise bullies would take it, or because Sam needed someone else to have the responsibility of looking after it for him so that he could have it at lunch time. How small things can be big and big things can be small.

    I like how it showed how Sam thinks about things, and the things he just didn't understand such as relationships that he would have to write the rules down for in his notebook. It showed the really good stuff about autism, and the bad stuff - the dramatisation of the meltdown gave a lot of insight - and the normal day-to-day stuff. What it's actually like to have hypersensitivities, and what "being overwhelmed" actually means. And it showed how people might perceive certain behaviours, such as when Sam was in bed with his hoodie pulled tight around his head and his blanket drawn up to his chest after he'd had an upset, and his dad asking if he wanted him to put the heating on - because he didn't recognise the point of why Sam was doing it.

    The family dynamics were good too. Everyone was very distinct and had their own way of dealing with "normal" family life. I particularly liked the dad, and the way his sister really cared even though she pretended not to.

    They raised some good points too, especially as seen from neurotypical people who don't understand what it is. Such as with the school Dance, why do we need to change something for everyone just so that one person can join in? I liked how it was about autism, but it wasn't about spotlighting autism itself, it was telling the tale of a whole family where one of the members had autism.

    Has anyone else seen it? I'd really recommend it, and I'd like to discuss it some more. But there's no point if it's just me :D

    Season 2 has been commissioned, 10 episodes, and we're looking forward to it.

Reply
  • If anyone hasn't seen this, it's billed as a coming-of-age comedy/drama for an 18-year-old boy with autism called Sam. It follows his life for 8 episodes, and that of his family, at the point where Sam decides he wants to get a girlfriend.

    I watched it with the family and we really enjoyed it. I read a few comments elsewhere where people were complaining it was either too stereotypical or not stereotypical enough :/ I guess maybe the things Sam was presented with didn't match up with those particular viewers' experience of autism?

    I thought it was a good representation. It showed quite a neat cross-section of life, both from Sam's perspective as the person with autism, but also from his family's perspective, of what it means to have someone with autism in your life, and how it impacts the family. It was also nice to see the support he had from the people who he relied on, and how he relied on different people for different things, and how this affected his relationships with others, such as (we don't have a <spoiler> tag in this forum to hide content, but this isn't really a spoiler) how he didn't "need" his dad for anything in his life until a few episodes in, and how that had made his dad feel.

    I like how it showed the different things Sam struggled with. There were certain things he excelled at, like his technical work at his job, but then he had to rely on his sister to do something as "simple" as hold his lunch money at school: that amazing contradiction we seem to have with the high-functioning. Actually that bit was ambiguous for me; I don't know if she held it because otherwise bullies would take it, or because Sam needed someone else to have the responsibility of looking after it for him so that he could have it at lunch time. How small things can be big and big things can be small.

    I like how it showed how Sam thinks about things, and the things he just didn't understand such as relationships that he would have to write the rules down for in his notebook. It showed the really good stuff about autism, and the bad stuff - the dramatisation of the meltdown gave a lot of insight - and the normal day-to-day stuff. What it's actually like to have hypersensitivities, and what "being overwhelmed" actually means. And it showed how people might perceive certain behaviours, such as when Sam was in bed with his hoodie pulled tight around his head and his blanket drawn up to his chest after he'd had an upset, and his dad asking if he wanted him to put the heating on - because he didn't recognise the point of why Sam was doing it.

    The family dynamics were good too. Everyone was very distinct and had their own way of dealing with "normal" family life. I particularly liked the dad, and the way his sister really cared even though she pretended not to.

    They raised some good points too, especially as seen from neurotypical people who don't understand what it is. Such as with the school Dance, why do we need to change something for everyone just so that one person can join in? I liked how it was about autism, but it wasn't about spotlighting autism itself, it was telling the tale of a whole family where one of the members had autism.

    Has anyone else seen it? I'd really recommend it, and I'd like to discuss it some more. But there's no point if it's just me :D

    Season 2 has been commissioned, 10 episodes, and we're looking forward to it.

Children
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