How many shows can you think of that feature characters with autism?

One I missed before was Sesame Street- there is an autistic muppet called Julia. She seems to have gotten a bit of a mixed response from the Autistic community. Some were upset that they didn't get an autistic actor to voice the character or an autistic writer to work on her scenes. From the little I've seen of her appearances I quite liked her. In particular, I liked one part where one of the adults said to Big Bird "Julia has autism." Big Bird asked what that meant and the adult responded "well, for her it means..." I thought it was cool that they were showing that not all autistic people were the same.

While they've never actually said on the show that she was autistic, the character, Bones (aka Temperence Brennan) on the Show Bones always struck me as behaving like someone on the autistic spectrum and apparently I'm not alone in thinking that. It's a pretty positive portrayal, as was the one on Waterloo Road, and challenges the assumption a lot of people still have that autism only affects boys and men.

by Jennifer Muirhead

I honestly don't take special note of characters on the spectrum, at least not any more than any other character.

One show that sticks out for me is Alphas, which was a low-budget Canadian-made sci-fi. Alphas ran for 2 seasons and was absolutely excellent storytelling. One of the main characters was Gary Bell, played by Ryan Cartwright. Gary was high functioning autistic with the power to interpret TV signals, cell phone signals, Wi-Fi frequencies, and the like. He was a cool character on an excellent show. I would have loved to see more seasons of Alphas. Gary was a favourite character, and I loved the way he was portrayed.

by DamienR

None - only my real life show at home!
There WAS a documentary a year or so ago on free to air TV which was excellent.

by Finy