Hi pals,
I’ve been on a real media kick on my channel in 2026 and I’m hoping this will be the direction my channel continues to go in. I wanted to highlight some examples of Autistic representation in TV shows. My main list is confirmed autistic representation of main characters in a show even if it wasn’t named in-show. And then a follow up list of honorable mentions which were either small short plotlines of side characters who were not in the show long, characters who went through the process of working out if they were autistic or not but the audience never got the answer or maybe went for ADHD and accidentally found out they also have autism too, and then I also threw in my old headcanon autistic characters video you can enjoy.
If you’d like to continue supporting me, please share this post and go and watch the videos that are embedded!
Astrid Murder in Paris
This show is in French but has English captions available! This is a campy detective crime show solving murders in each episode, with the occasional double episode. The show did a lot of initial research with autistic people before writing the script and during writing the script to make it more accurate to the general autistic experience. I think this really comes across in the media, but it is not acted by an autistic lead actress. I cannot find or confirm if any of the minor roles are acted by autistic actors though in the original series.
Patience
Patience is the UK version of Astrid Murder in Paris, there is a lot of similarities to the original show, such as all the crimes are the same crimes. Some of the characters and personal plots have been changed or adjusted, somethings have been changed to suit the UK setting and rather than being in Paris, it is set in York which I feel has a similar historic and grand vibe for TV, especially for a crime drama and makes a great backdrop. Some changes include Patience being MUCH younger in this version of the show, but they have cast autistic actors in the autistic roles which is a bonus on the original French version of the show!
Heartbreak High
Heartbreak High the reboot includes Quinni, an autistic queer girl in high school in Australia who is close friends with Darren and both become good friends with Amerie at the start of season 1. They are initially considered kinda losers in their own right, and even more so by hanging out with Amerie after her fall from the popular graces (which always seems so weird to me, Amerie never seems like she’d be a cool girl in any universe but okay) Quinni is the maximalist, high-masking, high-energy autistic. She goes to parties but doesn’t drink or take drugs (we find out why) and has some nerdy special interests… but also does really struggle remaining high-masking. Auditory processing is exhausting in restaurants and at parties, being spoken down to by new friends who find out you’re autistic is infantalising… and so much more. I loved this representation and it was one of my earlier experiences that I could remember and relate to! Oh you can’t forget the fidget toys and the ear defenders she’s always got!
Heated Rivalry
Surely you know what this show is about by now, but if not: a couple of closet queer hockey players start fucking and eventually fall in love. Shane is autistic, it’s not know in the show but is confirmed by the book author, and was included as part of the actor’s methods for this character… Honestly if you ask me his parents are super autistic too! He struggles socially, is really rigid in his schedule and his diet, has safe foods and special interests (i.e. hockey and architecture) and the only person he figures out how to talk to is Ilya because this bisexual Russian is sarcastic but generally very direct.
Film Club
Another one where its not in the script and no one knows about it in show but I’d also put money on the whole family being autistic! Honestly most of the characters… Film Club hit me so close to home I think this show is about me actually. Aimee Lou Wood wrote this partially about herself and in the process realised she’s autistic and that THIS was about being autistic. Evie, the main character has a massive breakdown at work (due to sensory overload) which leads her to becoming agoraphobic and unable to leave the house (not even her own house, her mums house) for 6 months. Her best friend Noa (I’d also bet is autistic) helps her out but also like… he’s moving really far away for his dream job. Evie and Noa are also massive film nerds who talk a lot in film quotes…
Skins Generation 2
I revisited this show a while back but I remember thinking JJ’s depiction of autism wasn’t actually that bad, a little stereotypical sure, but that doesn’t make it bad. He likes a lot of typical things for autistic white boys (off the top of my head I can’t really remember… I think model rockets? was one of them… and magic tricks) but the language used around autistic traits felt more accessible for a child to teenage audience which I could still appreciate. What was such a shame though, was that Pandora was in the same generation as JJ and wasn’t even recognised as autistic but I guess that’s them apples of the early 2000s (or like… 2012 ish whenever this was specifically) young girls who were super obviously autistic just simply were not seen as such and it’s ironic and fascinating seeing a canonically autistic boy with a headcanon autistic girl in the same show together side by side. They weren’t in many scene together which was also a shame so there wasn’t a lot of side by side comparisons. But we had a lot of similar takes of ‘god she’s so annoying, is she always like this, does she talk all the time’ which is also how people spoke about JJ, except JJ’s friends were more likely to defend him, Pandora’s weren’t. Both characters monologued their special interests or their thought processes that no one asked for, both of them were ‘overly emotional,’ both of them asked a lot of questions but especially WHY, both of them were still quite naive and young in their interests… And the most interesting thing to me is how differently people treated them. The only person who was nice to Pandora was Cook (who was also JJ’s only real defender a lot of the time) and Thomas (her boyfriend from the Congo who’s first language was not English) and JJ’s was Cook as stated and Emily who was his lesbian friend who took his virginity… wait Cook also… took Pandora’s… hm. Weird parallels.
America’s Next Top Model cycle 9
Now this one is about a real person! America’s Next Top Model had a few disabled contestants on over the years but a lot of it blurs together especially when many of them don’t get very far. There’s a few things that have come out about this season since I made my video about it such at the documentary (even though most people seemed quite disappointed in that) but my main point of reference was the memoir one of the contestants of cycle 9 wrote You Wanna Be On Top? by Sarah Hartshorne (you can buy the book with my bookshop affiliate link) who stated the girls on this season got on a lot better than the season let on in the final edit, which was a large part of my commentary… the bullying Heather seemed to be on the receiving end of, and the fact numerous girls in the house were clearly also neurodivergent and just didn’t have a name for it back then including herself who now says she has ADHD. So a large part of what I noticed in the show was the social issues and isolation, I don’t have a huge memory of anything else that came up really besides maybe struggling with interoception which is why Heather may have fallen ill so suddenly at a photoshoot, she just couldn’t tell she felt that way… I don’t know! But I think it is still worth checking out for some less traditional, less cis het white man esque representation of autism on TV!
honorable mentions
Grey’s Anatomy
This was a 2-3 episode storyline which I think was meant to become a longer one but the totally fumbled the bag on it to be honest. It is quite funny as everyone at Grey’s is completely useless at speaking to and managing Dr Dixon (the autistic doctor stepping in for head of cardio short term) including the very people who invited her there and wanted her to stay. There’s some really interesting moments of scientific reasoning for why some autistic people want and need firm pressure which I personally appreciate, and I quite liked seeing a woman take no shit and let everyone else scurry around picking up after her. It is also funny that early in Grey’s and I think not long after these episodes a patient asks Dr Yang if SHE is autistic because of her beside manner.
Casualty
Whilst Casualty have STILL left me hanging as to whether Dylan is even autistic or not, I think the whole plot was incredibly interesting and very eye opening for non-autistic people in and out of medical working settings. It was all set off by an incompetent worker Patrick trying to find a reason to blame Dylan for his own mistakes (a pattern of behaviour he had successfully conducted at numerous hospitals, killing patients and getting away with it because the people above him didn’t want the bad press) so he accused Dylan of being autistic, which sent Dylan off on 2 spirals. 1) am I autistic? 2) did I really do or cause all this? Fast forward he didn’t cause any of this, and with the help of a colleague they had to get rid of Patrick who was above them, and then they also had to try to work out how to get him actually fired. Dylan went through the process of an autism assessment because Patrick did have a point there actually, and Dylan has a history of alcoholism which has a higher likelihood in autistic folk but I believe an even higher likelihood in undiagnosed autistic folk… And that was it. But Patrick tried to use the fact that he thought Dylan was autistic as a reason he was not fit to work his job at all and fixated on the wrong details when actually he was fixating on the details which were catching Patrick out. Or would have done.
Sam Thompson’s ADHD Documentary
Another real life thing here, not going into the backlash Sam did deserve for being a bit of a twat to reasonable feedback and criticism on this doc, I think the doc generally is a reasonable ‘intro to’ kinda doc. It does ignore the fact he has loads of money lmfao he’s crying over fees vs. NHS waitlist times like he doesn’t come from Chelsea. But the interesting thing about this doc to me is that it initially is about ADHD, and BECAUSE he has the privilege of money and choosing a highly qualified specialist like Dr Jessica Eccles for a FULL neuro assessment which… the average person would simply not get… he was screened for a range of conditions and not just the ADHD he went there for and he left with ADHD, Autism and a possible tic disorder diagnosis. I think this is interesting BECAUSE most people would only see or notice, or at the very least understand, his ADHD traits and wouldn’t notice his other conditions until the ADHD was being treated, this happens a lot and has happened to people I know that many psychologists and psychiatrists believe a lot of ADHD traits disguise autistic ones (or can). My MAIN red flag of this doc besides the ones brought up at the time the doc was aired is the ADHD meds. He didn’t talk about them much or in detail and the way he and his family talked about them was quite stigmatising and unhelpful. The way he was prescribed ADHD meds is nor normal, or seemed abnormal. It sounded like he was given too high a dose to begin with which makes no sense for a beginning titrating dose. So I have many questions on this particular point but because barely anything is shared about what he took, the dose he took, who prescribed it and how he was told to take it… it’s hard to know much of anything. So I think it was dangerous to keep that in the doc.
~ Artie
they/them
artiecarden.com 
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