What I thought about: Love on the Spectrum

Can people on the autism spectrum find love? Yes, of course, and for any doubters out there, this show sets out to prove it. Going much deeper than Channel 4’s The Undateables, this Australian series is awkward, endearing, funny, and genuine. Yeah, I shed a tear at the end.

This couple are adorable. Watch the final episode to get the waterworks going…

What’s it about?
Autism is a developmental disability that has different characteristics (hence the ‘spectrum’), but in one way or another makes it more difficult for autistic individuals to interact socially with non-autistic people, also known as neurotypicals. This can manifest itself in a particularly difficult way when it comes to dating. In this show we see problems in keeping the discussion going, an inability to process and understand social cues, and, occasionally, a complete mind-blank when things become too overwhelming for the individual.

The show goes deeper than just showing singletons on dates (although that does make up a lot of the show). We catch mini interviews with their parents, lessons from an autism behavioural expert who teaches them how to have a successful date, and there’s even coverage of two happy couples (all on the spectrum).

What do I like about it?
The show is better than The Undateables essentially because it goes deeper than just showing people on their dates. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of autism because of it, which is important especially as it a disability that is often not immediately visible.

The show also covers differing sexual orientations, and also those with other disabilities (commonly deafness). Also, the parents of each of the show’s participants are truly adorable. None of them resent having a child with autism, and they’re all proud of how far their child has come from childhood (one parent tells the show that their child started out being non-verbal and having a tendency for violent outbursts. The grown up person we see featured on the show is talkative and caring).

What do I not like about it?
One good point I saw mentioned in another review of the show is that the people they dated were autistic, and all of the events they went to were specifically for disabled or autistic people. You do get a sense that there is some segregation, but one part of me feels as though it’s good to develop the social skills among people who better understand your own disability before trying it in the wider world.

Worth a watch?
Yes! This was an adorable series and it has one of the best since filming began… end credits scenes I have ever seen. You become really attached to the show’s participants by the end and you really want their love lives to succeed.

By the way…

• Let me know your favourite participants – mine are Andrew and Maddi
• The show was created and directed by Cian O’Clery, who is also the voice you hear asking the participants questions during interviews

495w

What I thought about: Upload

As long as you try not to think about the questionable wide-arc plot in this show, Upload is a funny, romantic, but also sobering look at the potential technological advances of the next 10-20 years.

That’s a talking therapy dog, by the way.

What’s it about?
Nathan Brown is badly hurt in a car accident at the prime age of 27. As his vitals are dropping, his wealthy girlfriend hastily arranges his ascension to heaven – digital heaven, that is, in the form of a consciousness transfer to Lake View, a premium virtual afterlife in which her family has ‘unlimited data’. It takes Nathan a while to get used to his new living situation, and he’s having some trouble recalling what he was working on in the weeks leading up to the accident. With the help of his ‘Angel’ (customer service representative Nora Antony) he begins to settle in and see what digital living has to offer.

In the living world, Nora starts to develop feelings for Nathan and, suspicious of the corruption of his memory files, helps to uncover the truth behind Nathan’s death.

What do I like about it?
The little details that are scattered in the show are really quite fun, and serve as an unexpected treat whenever they crop up. When certain things in Lake View cost money to use, a literal button for ‘in app purchases’ appears. When the servers temporarily lose power and kick into backup mode, the uploads (what they call dead people in the virtual afterlife) turn to blocky, Minecraft-like characters, which seems obvious but caught me so off guard that I laughed out loud.

The underlying romance that develops between Nathan and Nora is also cute, and the show makes good use of the setting to demonstrate this. Nora invites Nathan to walk on water, ‘I just activated the feature’, she says, before he eagerly steps forward and plunges straight in. She was teasing him. There’s also a particularly poignant moment where Nathan’s memories of his time at Lake View – including his time spent with Nora – are at risk of being erased. I genuinely felt sad for them in that moment, so you know the show is doing something right.

What do I not like about it?
The plot – the part of it where Nathan tries to find out why he died – is a little sketchy. I think the writers held back too much, letting slip so little in this season that this part of the story felt meaningless overall. I know where they’re going with it though, it’s the sort of onion-style plot we’ve seen in shows like Orphan Black. What I mean by this is, in Season 1 there’s a bad guy, but in the season finale he’s revealed to be small fry in a bigger operation. This will probably repeat until the show gets cancelled and, in the final season, the last super-super-super-evil person is revealed to have been the actual mastermind all along.

Worth a watch?
Sure. It’s funny and it’s a cool (if slightly dystopian) insight into what life could be like fairly soon.

By the way…

• We’re getting a second season, thank goodness.
• The show sat in development limbo for about 2 years after it was ordered until filming finally began in Vancouver in May 2019

554w