i do not think atypical is like. a very good show. i watch significant chunks of it with gritted teeth, and also i cant stop thinking about this clip i saw of the actor of the dad in this show where hes like spouting just the most horrid things about palestine and palestine activists etc.. which is really very irrelevant to my opinion on the show but i just thought i'd throw that out there... there is like a noticeable jump in improvement between season 1 and the further seasons, where they did sort of listen to criticism about making a show about autism without having any autistic writers or actors. the main character isnt played by an autistic person, but in subsequent seasons they do add some supporting characters who i think(?) are actually played by autistic actors. so like, cool! but i still kinda just find the portrayal of autism in this show soo... i dont know what the word is. surface-level? maybe i want something that speaks to my experience and not something thats made to educate neurotypicals, but i just feel like something's lacking.
also uhh why was i watching this mediocre show about autism you ask? i have like a ridiculous amount of nostalgia about it because i originally watched it around the time it came out, which was. a time for me. i was being diagnosed with autism for like the 6th time in my life and i was begging the psychologist not to give me a diagnosis because it could impact my ability to get hormones and stuff. so like at the time i kinda appreciated a surface-level view of things, i guess? and then also theres this whole other big plot of like. the mom cheating on the dad and guess what had just happened in my life when i saw this show the first time? my dad had just cheated on my mom. so i related a lot to the character casey in like, i guess a lot of her problems. moving to a new school where you know nobody but everybody knows each other, one of your parents cheating and trying to pretend its all normal. luckily the show spends quite a lot of time on casey so you can really just kinda pretend that sam is some side character who doesnt usually matter so much and only focus on casey.
i still dont like, recommend the show though. only recommend it if you're a 16 year old having a complicated relationship with your autism, just moved to a new school, and your parents are splitting up because one of them cheated but the one who cheated is pretending everything's fine and refusing to just like acknowledge what they did. maybe if youre in like that exact scenario, the show might resonate like a tiny bit with you. and you'd be 16 so your standards might be pretty low also. otherwise dont watch this show