Patience

Patience is an extremely poor remake of Astrid and Raphael, a long running French / Belgian production that has just ended its fifth series. Unlike its far superior portrayal of Astrid and her neurotypical difficulties, which are explored in much greater detail and far more sympathetically, Patience falls short of the mark in so many areas. As a person who has raised foster children who were on the autistic spectrum, Patience simply doesn't do justice to their trials and tribulations. Those wishing to watch a far more intelligent and extremely empathetic portrayal of the autistic spectrum, should search for Astrid and Raphael, as it is readily available for download or streaming, and is a sumptuous feast by comparison.

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... :-)

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.

I am told by a friend that the French/Belgian series on which this is based is a superior watch. However, as I have yet to see that original I cannot compare, and can only judge Patience on it's own merits. So, I enjoyed it. It was a little different from the run of the mill detective series, and the better for it in my humble opinion. I thought the two leads were very good indeed, and were backed by a decent supporting cast. I thought that Patience's autism was handled with sensitivity although one or two elements of her condition seemed to be magically resolved by single incidents. That didn't, for me, take anything away from my overall enjoyment. I'll watch Astrid soon so I can make the comparison.

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.