Transcript
Multicare Announcer (0:00)
Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org.
Alison Stewart (0:37)
This is all of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I hate to say it, folks, but it's Labor Day, which means summer is winding down. If you've been keeping your sunny season busy with some of the vacation tips we've talked about on the show, you might be a little tuckered out, traveled out, oversunned and in need of some quality time with your couch and your tv. Name a more iconic duo than that. So to help you make good choices about the shows you want to pair with your downtime for today's all of it, we are revisiting conversations about some of the television and streaming series that have been making waves in this year's Emmy nominations. The awards are being held on September 14th. Later in the show, we'll talk with two of the stars of Severance, which leads the pack at 27 nominations. We'll also talk about andor the dark sci fi resistance series from the Star wars universe and Adolescence, which looks at.
Host/Interviewer (1:37)
Violence, gender and how children can be.
Alison Stewart (1:39)
Radicalized on the Internet. That's all on the way, but first.
Host/Interviewer (1:44)
We get things started with a little love.
Alison Stewart (1:49)
Love on the Spectrum follows a group of neurodivergent young people as they navigate the complicated world of romance. There are folks like Abby and David who have been dating successfully for years. Others like Madison and Tanner, have been unlucky in love so far, and everyone is coming to the process with anxieties we all have. Will they find me attractive? Will we have interests in common? What might physical intimacy look like? Season 3 of Love on the Spectrum is streaming on Netflix and has been nominated for five Primetime Emmy nominations. The show's two creators and executive producers, Keanu Cleary and Carina Holden, joined me in studio to talk about it. When the show first dropped and listeners. During the conversation, we took some calls, but since this is an encore presentation, we won't be able to take your calls today. I asked Kian to explain where the ideas for this series first came from.
Kian O'Clery (2:49)
I was making a series with Northern Pictures with Karina back in Australia for our public broadcaster, which is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. So we're big fans of public broadcasting at Northern Pictures, and so we Were making a series that was about following people with disabilities looking for employment. And kind of the show is about kind of highlighting the skills that people can bring to a workplace and kind of giving people opportunities and helping audiences understand what, you know, the positives that can be brought to a workplace by employing a diverse range of people. And through that process, just met many, many, many young adults on the autism spectrum. And we just kept hearing as we got to know people through the casting process, not just the people we filmed with, but also the hundreds and hundreds of people we spoke to in the casting process. There was a. There was a real kind of yearning with a lot of people to find love and, and to enter the dating world. And there was a lot of people we met that hadn't yet started to date. And I think, you know, an example is Mark, who is in the first series of Love on the spectrum. He was 29 years old, wanted nothing more than to find love and never been on a date. So it just felt like there was this kind of space where the support wasn't quite there, and there were a lot of people we were meeting who really wanted that support. And in Australia, we had a lot of support for employment, but not for kind of the dating relationships, finding love, social skills. So it just felt like a really interesting kind of space to explore as well as, you know, I just realized there were all these really interesting, wonderful people on the spectrum, and that was really diverse. And, you know, we, we. I took to Karina, she loved it. We developed it and, and pitched it to the ABC public broadcaster. And, you know, eventually we got it up. But it was hard. You know, it was hard. And interestingly, one of the things that was hard was people would say, well, isn't it just going to feel the same? Because everybody's on the spectrum. And our answer to that is that's the whole point of why we need to make the show, because everyone is very different. And there is this kind of probably a bit of an understanding, or not an understanding, but a thought that people on the spectrum are all quite similar. And I think a lot of that was to do with what media representation we'd had so far in films and maybe in TV shows. So that's kind of how it all started.