Increase of characters in tv series with asperger traits

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There seems to be a rapid increase of characters in tv series who seem to display a wide range of asperger traits.
The Bridge is one of those series. I am referring to the scandinavion version of The Bridge because I haven't seen the American one. One of the main characters of The Bridge is Saga noren. The writers of The Bridge clearly intended to create a story that focuses on a policewoman who clearly has aspergers. I am not sure if it is intentional or not but Sherlock comes across as a detective with a form of aspergers that has gone completely haywire.

Those series are pretty good by the way and The Bridge is probably one of my favorite tv series ever! That doesn't take away the fact that it is a somewhat uncomfortable watch for me at times because the writers never get it completely right when they want to portray people with asperger traits. It's never spot on! Saga Noren in The Bridge is certainly not the worst example of a woman with aspergers (on tv) but she comes across as completely emotionless. People with aspergers are just as emotional as people who don't have it, on the contrary. Lots of us have the feeling that they are on an overwhelming emotional rollercoaster that never stops. Another misconception about aspergers is that people seem to think that we are either childlike ret*ds or the complete opposite, geniuses with an uncannily high brain capacity. The truth is that aspergers does not have a negative nor a positve effect on someones intelligence. There are some people on WP who like to present themselves as geniuses but that hasn't got anything to do with the fact they have aspergers in my opinion.

Again, I don't want to be overly critical about these series since they are really good but there are some minor flaws here and there.

These are all TV-series with a main character I relate with :

Silicon Valley




Mr Robot




House MD





Sherlock





Bones

The Sheldon Cooper aspie archetype is entertaining for audiences for several reasons, the first being comedy. There's also the fascination of watching a character who behaves oddly, and the mildly socially awkward nerds who will relate to the character. These characters are also useful for moving the plot forward, because they're often the ones figuring things out.

I'd like to see some more relatable portrayals. The most relatable characters I've found are those that aren't written as autistic but as socially awkward and eccentric. Those written as autistic are either overstuffed with symptoms until they're nothing more than a walking checklist, or the writers refrain from identifying them as autistics because they don't want any backlash.

I get the impression that writers are afraid to label their characters autistic without throwing in every symptom under the sun, in order to avoid criticisms of, "But that's not what the autistic person I know acts like."

From the Wikipedia entry on Sheldon Cooper:

I'm pretty sure if anyone's seen "Derek" on Netflix (highly suggest it if you haven't) the title character is supposed to be ASD.

^^I find Sherlock a much more believable Aspie than Sheldon, mainly because the former isn't depicted as cliche or solely for comedy.

Eugene from The Walking Dead definitely seems like an aspie, and that would explain his weirdness. I really hope he's not the one who died in the season 7 finale, because he is a very relatable character for me.

I know that it's not a TV show, but the author of The Martian has officially confirmed that Rich Purnell is intended to be on the autism spectrum (as I suspected). The book does a better job at portraying it then the movie, and it's also better then the movie in every other way too. The movie was good and all, but it was a bit of a disappointment for me. That's a rant for another day though.