Alphas (SyFy)

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Really surprised it has not been brought up yet (except for 2-3 passing mentions in another thread)
One character, Gary, is Autistic (Aspergers). In tonight's episode, there was a girl that was non-verbal, and initially called, "low functioning Autistic." I will refrain from saying any more, do not want to spoil it for others. This episode made me smile, and cry.

The show has people with "powers," and a branch of the government is using and studying them, and refer to them as "Alphas." They are being discussed as being "a future evolution of human kind." Interestingly, my wife made this comment within a dozen minutes or so of the first episode. She saw these Alphas.. not all, but most.. as possessing overly magnified traits that I (and other Autistics she has met) have. Sensory issues, fast computations, etc. It is "sci fi cheese," and there are times I want to call Autism Speaks on the phone and ask if they see us like this.. as a difference that needs to be exterminated, prevented, etc.

Anyway, I like the show, probably in a way similar to what Vulcans might feel when watching Star Trek. Then again, maybe not. I am not very good at analogies and metaphor. I imagine some will just not like it at all... maybe even go so far as hating it.

Alphas is a great show. I've watched all 4 episodes so far, and I love it.

Being a linguist, I couldn't help but be annoyed by Anna's "language", since there is no way that she could use it to communicate with Gary, let alone a computer. I can only suspend my disbelief so much. Nevertheless it was my favorite episode so far, and was quite a shocker, It shows that even though someone might look fragile and powerless, there can be a lot more than meets the eye.

For myself, I appreciate the fact that so far at least they've been portraying Gary not as some totally helpless basket case that exists only to burden his poor mother, nor as some brilliant angel who will bring joy to everyone if they can just come to understand him, but instead as a guy with AS - occasionally brilliant, occasionally exasperating, unable to lie convincingly even when it's in his best interests ("We're not really doing market research. That's just our cover story"), and almost excessively devoted to the Rules ("I found his car. It's moving north at a high rate of speed. It's illegal to go that fast!").

I've only watched the pilot so far. The prograssm has potential though to present people on the spectrum as being people & not just oddballs. I rather like that since the general public has no clue what someone on the spectrum is like in reality. And really why is it that people think someone with autism is a freak? No one is perfect, not even those who are NTs. It's not perfect, but a good start. However, because it's on Syfy, it's hard to say how much it'll catch on with the general public. Those who like watching reality shows are not likely to see it.

I like the show, it doesn't seem to have a huge budget so maybe it will stick around.

Anyone see tonight's episode?

I only caught the last half of it, but it involved a group called Red Flag trying to blow up a factory that was going to manufacture a new drug, which would prevent neurological birth defects. It is revealed at the end that Red Flag wants to stop the drug because it would mean that no new neurodiverse people (which Red Flag is apparently composed of) would be born if it became widespread.

And they used the word "neurodiverse" in the episode (which I think is the first time I've heard the term on TV).

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The casting of Red Flag/ND basically as terrorists make me lean toward this not being a great image for the general public. OTOH, the main character is sympathetic (but torn), and says something like, "but they do have a good point."

You wanna know what I think? I've pretty much seen the first four episodes of Alphas, and it almost seems like a thinly veiled metaphor for the neurodiversity movement in general.

Let me explain. You guys probably already know this, but there is a faction on Wrongplanet (although they are loosely organized so I'm not sure if faction is the right word) that is a bit on the radical and paranoid side, believing that it's an us-versus-them scenario when it comes to Aspies and the rest of the world. And it's not just here, it pretty much exists on all of the Aspie communities scattered around the Internet.

Then there are people, like me, who believe that it's possible to coexist, and have tried and usually suceeded in integrating with normal society.

So let's say we are all Alphas (minus the badass abilities).... the Aspie militant faction is Red Flag... and the people like Dr. Rosen who wish for the integration of Alphas into normal society mirror the opposing faction who see things not as a conflict scenario, but a chance to coexist.

When you line up the pieces like that, it's almost too similar to be a coincidence.

I plan to research the personal histories of the production staff of Alphas later, because I believe it's possible that they may be trying to allude to the neurodiversity movement in a believeable-but-subtle manner. They may be alluding Alphas to Aspies as a whole, and it's possible that by outing one of the Alphas as a diagnosed Aspie, they're trying to maintain the illusion that it's something original, when in reality it's been happening to us for quite some time.

Also, when I first heard of the show, I drew another interesting conclusion. I can't recall the character's name, but one of the women in Dr. Rosen's group has what the show calls "hyperinduction" - basically she can force people to do her bidding by looking them in the eye. Doesn't that remind you of a certain anime character that's gained some popularity among otaku circles?

Namely,

Not being otaku, or having even vague familiarity with the anime you reference, I couldn't say. However, the Alpha powers seem to be exaggerations of normal human abilities; most people can convince others to do things, some can convince them to do things that are against their best interests, and Nina can force them to do things they ordinarily wouldn't even consider (although apparently her power doesn't work on autistics - at least, Gary and Anna seem to be immune).

The lineups can be seen as a version of the neurodiversity movement; they can also be seen as a version of the baseline/mutant conflicts in Marvel Comics (the X-Men and a large number of baselines believe the two groups can live and work together; the Brotherhood believes that mutants must rule for their own protection; and a few radical groups on the human side, such as Trask's Sentinels and the religious group that almost wiped out Utopia Island, believe that mutants are a threat to humanity and must be eliminated). For that matter, they're kind of analogous to the sides taken during the civil-rights struggles of the Sixties, with radical separatists on each side and a wide middle that just wants to get along.

I do think, however, that we're in the process of learning that Dr. Rosen has been duped, and the group will come to believe that they're working for the wrong group in this conflict - the Compound seems to be rather more sinister than they have been led to believe, and it was interesting to see that Rosen is keeping careful records of all the people he's sent there...

I haven't seen the show, but I can relate to this clip. The sounds around me drive me nuts every day. I wish I had someone like Amazing Baseball Throwing Man around.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-I8Qqm8Xfg[/youtube]

I just watched the episode with the "low functioning" autistic girl. Whoever wrote that episode has a very good understanding of neurodiversity. Dr. Rosen even used the word. I agree that you have to suspend your rational beliefs when watching these sci-fi shows but I thought the writing in this episode was excellent. The main theme was that a group of alphas are trying to stop the use of a new drug that could be used to abort the birth of more alphas. Where have we read about this before? A sub theme of the episode was that Gary gets treated as though he's a child because he's different from the other alphas in their group and because he's also autistic. The other alphas are NTs. Alphas are struggling with being treated differently from everyone else in society yet they are treating one of their own in the same way because he's different in yet another way. I've read many posts on this and other forums about autistics complaining they get treated like children even when they are adults. The writer must have had some insight into this.

Anyone remember seeing Ryan Cartwright (Gary) as the intern Vincent on Bones? I was shocked when they killed him off at the end of last season. Ryan had to lose his British accent to play Gary.

I really like this show too, largely because of Gary. I especially liked last week's episode with the girl who Rosen thought was low-functioning at first. In that episode, there was a lot of sensitivity to how people with autism actually have inner lives and that we're not just a collection of externally observable symptoms. Gary has feelings and motivations of his own, and he's capable of making judgments about his own priorities and quality of life. I mean, wow! It's like he's a REAL PERSON. He's not just an autistic automaton who goes wherever he's led.

I also like how they had Rosen acknowledge that neuro diversity isn't something you can "fix" but as a core part of a person. There's an understanding in this show that how you are wired helps make you YOU, and you cannot simply say one way of neuro wiring is OK while another isn't just because the status quo is uncomfortable with divergence.