Patience

Whilst investigating a case, DI Metcalf encounters Patience, a young employee who works at records, an autistic young woman, with a razor sharp brain and a skill for spotting patterns, Metcalf persuades Patience to join her team.

I haven't seen the original series, so I can't compare, so my words are based purely on Channel 4's series.

I was honestly blown away by the quality of this series, I genuinely wasn't expecting it to be as good as this, what a tremendous first run, my only hope is that more follow.

The best thing Channel Four have done for quite some time, it truly is a cut above.

Every single episode is beautifully crafted, clever and intriguing, what a totally refreshing series, unlike anything else on the box right now.

I've always been a fan of Laura Fraser, and she is excellent, but this series is stolen by the sublime performance of Ella Maisy Purvis, who is genuinely sensational as Patience, acting of the highest order.

I love seeing Patience developing, and seeing an increase in her confidence as the series develops, if you have anyone close to you, who is autistic, you'll see some indicators, I certainly do.

Please Channel four, we need more.

9/10.

This English version lacked poignant moments that could have been developed with the lead character, Patience.

The French / Belgian version; Astrid et Raphaëlle (Astrid on C4 UK) the lead character Astrid was played with more depth, and where you could feel her struggles.

All in all this is watchable and it was good to see the relationship develop between Patience and Detective Bea. This also showed how the main characters learned how to be understanding of Patience and tolerant towards Patience's difficulties, but also becoming more respectful of the skills that Patience could bring to the team.

Some really good casting in this version and I hope to see a second series, to see how all these characters evolve.

It's was great to see a ___location that was filmed outside of London.

In a world where the superb Franco-Belgian series "Astrid et Raphaelle" (2019; IMDb ID tt11950864) wouldn't exist, Patience would be a decent effort, meriting perhaps 6/10 or 7/10. However, we live in a world where (thankfully) the original series "Astrid et Raphaelle" does exist. I would strongly recommend anyone who plans to watch Patience to watch "Astrid et Raphaelle" instead.

In "Astrid et Raphaelle", Astrid is the main character and her autism and journey to interacting more easily with "normies" is the red thread through the (40+ so far) episodes. This is a slow process for which we get a first-row seat. Also, the actress playing Astrid is absolutely outstanding and you really feel empathy towards her, you root for her and are occasionally left with a lump in your throat.

By contrast, in Patience everything feels hurried. In only six episodes Patience/Astrid starts to smile, hugs a kid and kisses a man, more or less "just like that". No slow, shared journey with insights into Astrid's inner being. Patience/Astrid is barely the main character, which is odd since the series is named after her. It feels that the rush causes Patience/Astrid to be used as a deus ex machina more than a character - the bringer of missing links just in time to catch the culprit. On top of that, the story lines are recycled from the original series as well. All in all, Patience feels like a rushed and lazy series.

PS: One of the episodes of Patience features a character called Peter Venkman. Surely, this must be a conscious reference to Bill Murray's character in Ghostbusters... :-)

I was so angry to see the reviews in the Mail, GB News, Sun, Star, even the Guardian. The headline was the same in almost all of them and it seemed to be an organised attack on the show by the media. It makes one wonder who wrote the original article and who paid for it! I can forgive ignorance about autism but this front page headline:

Patience viewers 'switch off after just ten minutes' as they blast show for 'ripping off' rival drama and slate 'awful' Channel 4 scenes

The same headline and more or less the same text appeared in all these papers on the same day. All front page.

Now if you watched only the first ten minutes, you wouldn't have seen anything to make a judgement! All the episodes begin by setting up the scene of the crime and those involved. Perhaps these people thought that the DI was the main character and autistic, they cetainly didn't sit down with the intention of watching it.

There are so many series that 'copy' foreign series, and so many series with a similar theme: autistic detective is brilliant at solving crimes. Think Sherlock Holmes, Dr House and many many more, it is a bit of a cliche; however, this series goes further than most others in showing the characteristic behaviour of one kind of autism very well.

So was the show attacjìked in such a way???? Perhaps Patience can solve this mystery in the first episode of Season 2!

My son is autistic and I loved this show as it got nearly everything right for a single case of autism. Autism is a spectrum with so many characteristics and problems.

My son doesn't communicate directly but speaks endlessly on occasion, so anyone can see he is different, but many autistic people can fake normal behaviour and take part in society. However, the intensity of their senses can make it increasingly impossible to function, and they can freeze, become angry, or run. Patience showed this aspect very well.

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My mother showed me this series because I am a young woman with autism and representation in the media for autistic females is next to none. Many people seem to dispute the accuracy and consistency of the symptoms she displays, but they're criticism comes from misunderstanding autism in females. You see Sherlock and the good doctor and see autistic people as one consistent stereotype, when its a spectrum disorder and people are filled with contradictions. The one consistency that exists in all autistics though is superior pattern recognition skills and that's why crime shows have these characters but rarely female ones and the difference between patience and those other characters is accurate to the disorder looking different in males versus female.

I want to dispute some peoples objections to the accuracy of Patience, as an autistic woman (diagnosed). Someone said she couldn't do hugs and touch but was fine when a child did that, as if that's proof she's making up the symptom or that its an error in the writing. That's not the case, people touching her triggers her as an autistic pers but my guess would be that when a young girl hugged her it was different because she saw herself in that girl and it was a child. Just a guess but the point is the "rules" of someones autism are not cut and dry and contain a lot of inconsistencies. For me I hate loud noises and crowded settings but love going to concerts, why that is isn't something I can clearly explain but its just different. As for the pediatric schizophrenia diagnosis I will say that specific disorder isn't the typical misdiagnosis for autistic girls, its usually borderline personality disorder or bipolar, but its more common then not that female autistics were diagnosed with a personality disorder before anyone thought to consider autism. That's the issue and I appreciate that they cover that in this show. I haven't watched everything and maybe there are flaws to Patiences character, but her autism is portrayed accurately and given how rare that is I'm rating this highly and think people should watch this as a representation of what female autism is.