I've put off making this post for a little while as I wanted to give people a chance to watch it. I know many still won't have so please stop reading her if you don't want spoiler about Patience.
I'm really torn on what I think about it as a show. I love the fact that we are representing autistic women on TV so I definitely don't want to be too critical of it. And I did enjoy many parts of it. But there were some parts of it that I found difficult to watch. Some of my criticism is about the drama itself not the portrayal of autism.
I think they showed some important aspects of autistic life but there was something about the way it was played that made me less enthusiastic about it.
I think it was important to show how difficult it was for Patience to lose the woman from the first series. I thought they showed the difficulty of her trying to process that well.
I'm unsure how I feel about the new woman basically bullying Patience. It's never nice to see something like that but it is a realistic issue for autistic people. I did find it odd though. Patience was very much in the wrong. She didn't actually work for the police and therefore had no business poking into cases. The woman dealt with this really badly and was cruel in the way she spoke to Patience. I know it's for drama but why was this situation allowed to just keep on going. Surely management or HR or whoever would be stepping in.
I'm not completely against the portrayal of an autistic person being very clever or good at something because there are autistic people that experience that. But I do feel it's an over represented part of the spectrum. I found Patience's realisations were a little too dramatic. It came across as she had just put it all together in 5 seconds flat in some totally genius way. I'd have liked to see them show how she might hide herself away for hours to hyperfocus on the evidence and use pattern spotting to work out. This would have been more believable to me. Her answer when asked why she was good was just well I'm autistic - I see things differently. Whilst this is often true, it seemed like such an over simplification.
I didn't find her bursting into the crime scenes etc at dramatic moments very realistic. That was nothing to do with autism. I just don't think actual police would let that happen.
I also found the scene with the girl with autism a bit odd. She sends the sister away, asks the girl to sit on the bed. Girl immediately calms down and trusts her. I think that this was a little silly and seemed to be suggesting that all autistic people get all autistic people. It would have been better if they'd just shown the contrast between the over whelmed sister panicking and someone just sitting calmly and waiting for her to be ready.
I do think the actress plays Patience well though. She shows her worries, social struggles and sensory issues really well.
I don't want to be overly critical because I don't want TV producers etc to shy away from trying to make programmes with autistic characters because they just get criticised. But I find it an interesting discussion point.
What do other people think? Did you enjoy it or not? What did you particularly like or not like?
