10 Unexpectedly Awesome Netflix TV Shows That Need Binge Watching

A coming of age story about an autistic high school senior and his family, Atypical doesn’t sound like something you’d binge - or indeed like much of a sitcom - but the show is extraordinarily addictive, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

Keir Gilchrist is fantastic as Sam, in many ways as ordinary an eighteen-year-old boy as you could hope to meet, trying to navigate romance and independence in the face of a mother who isn’t convinced he’s meant to have either of those things.

Although Sam’s struggles aren’t glossed over and remain the focus of much of the storytelling, it’s made clear that they’re not hugely dissimilar to those of any other teenager. His difficulties with socialisation are front and centre, something that caused issues in the first season when critics noted the lack of autistic people involved in the show (Gilchrist isn’t on the spectrum), something that to a large extent was corrected for the standout second season.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michael Rapaport are predictably great as Sam’s troubled parents, but possibly the standout role goes to Brigette Lundy-Paine as Sam’s younger sister Casey, who often has to act as his protector at school. Despite her intelligence and no-nonsense capability she has almost as difficult a time growing up as Sam, or as their parents do in navigating adulthood, tying into a theme of the show: that since everyone is atypical to a degree, and no one really has it easy, we should take care of one another.