I have a current situation where I'm Luke, interested in Lorelei, but there's Christopher, always popping back up to keep Lorelei emotionally unavailable. Also, though painted as just a result of him being manly in a sense, Luke could be said to have a few vaguely autistic characteristics to help me self-identify, even though I lack the manliness of being able to build things. Thus Gilmore Girls has all the wisdom and I can't wait to get to the later seasons of my own life.
Speaking of which...
Atypical: S1
A show about the travails of dating when you are on the spectrum that gets almost everything right except for the travails of dating when you are on the spectrum. That sounds a little snarky, but as someone on the spectrum who attempts to date, I have a lot of lived experience for the show to try to reflect for me to feel its accuracy. I suppose that's the challenge of representation in media, especially with something as amorphous as the autism spectrum. The famous saying is that if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism, which is to say you can't generalize. That is probably true about any other identity, but it does make it harder for a fictional character to feel representational.
Sam (Kier Gilchrist) is an autistic high school senior who decides it is time to take on the effort of dating. And as is our way, he prepares himself for this by trying to rigorously observe how the whole dating thing works, noting observations from many sources, not always sure how to measure the viability of different approaches (i.e. pick-up artists). In this process it has plenty of accurate aspects...the problem of what is often a zero-tolerance standard for mistakes in dating, at the same time mistakes are inevitable when we are asked to act without full information or sufficient time to process the information we do have. It takes into consideration difficulties in understanding our own feelings at times, elements of obsessiveness, and inadequate awareness of even glaring boundaries of social norms.
Yet, at least from my jaded perspective it all felt too easy for Sam. It certainly depicts how his symptoms placed barriers to his part in relationships, but the romantic prospects he finds are unrealistically tolerant or forgiving. Within the first episode the first girl who shows an interest manages to overcome his "weirdness" to go on an unusual date and even take him to her dorm room before one of his more pronounced symptoms derails progress. Nothing in my life has ever been as easy as that was. At least the next success actually feels grounded in character detail.
Another mystery of the show is the near-complete absence of the internet. Admittedly the internet isn't the most visual thing, but to act like the internet isn't around is omitting what is often a significant component of the social lives of autistic people. Online forums and other similar venues are a great attraction as a safer means of social connection, and of meeting people with common interests. Indeed, my first romantic relationship bloomed from such a forum. There is a slight reference to online dating, but it is casually dismissed as basically a punchline. And then we get to a point where he feels as part of his sexual education he needs to see boobs and rather than turn to the internet (and really, how has he not seen boobs by the time he's 18), there is a whole scene where his friend drags him to a strip club. Again, I get that the internet isn't visual, but to omit it is inauthentic.
But ultimately if you asked me would I like someone I'd like to date to watch this to hopefully learn a little about what it would be like to date me, I'd still say yes. For all its faults I do think it captures enough elements and approaches it with empathy that it serves a positive role in stating that here are a group of people, yes there are unique challenges involved, but contrary to how most people treat them they have romantic desires and can be fulfilling partners.
Really though, what makes the show worth watching is that it has a lot of great writing paired with a really strong cast that makes it a very enjoyable experience. Gilchrist does capture things well but the real star of the show for me was his sister Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who has a young Winona Ryder vibe as a kind of alt, sarcastic teenage girl. She and the parents are very well etched out with arcs that show the reverberations of Sam into their lives for good and bad. The primary miss for me was Sam's friend Zahid who is kind of a skeezy McLovin type, but apparently actually successful with women and I don't endorse that. Anyway, as a small, 4-hour investment, it is definitely a solid value TV show.