Atypical, Netflix Original, Captivates Watchers

By Austin Cohea | Assistant Editor |

Keir Gilchrist plays Sam Gardner, an autistic 18 year old in an epic search for a girlfriend. The only problem is that most girls at his school don’t pay even the slightest amount of attention to him.

The show is a Netflix original and was released in August 2017.

The series has a total of eight episodes; each episode is about 30 minutes. The show is appropriate for audiences 13 and up and was produced by a range of people, including Seth Gordon, who also played a part in producing Pixels, a 2015 cartoon movie. Also in the series is Michael Rapaport, who is known for movies like Deep Blue Sea and True Romance.

Gardner gets into some trouble with girls when he decides to find a girlfriend,which is fine, but he fell in love with his therapist, Julia, and in fruit mishap, she breaks up with her boyfriend. The show is very funny but has a little bit of drama mixed in. The writing is so good, as well, it feels like something that could happen in real life, while still remaining entertaining.

Gardner has a particular interest in Antarctica, especially penguins, and when Julia yells at him, he names the four types of Antarctic penguins to try and calm himself down (Emperor, Chinstrap, Gentoo, Adélie).

Gilchrist plays Sam Gardner really well,  in a character similar to Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. It’s definitely worth a try, next time you can’t find anything to watch on Netflix.