I am fascinated by the story line of a new TV show this
year. The story concerns an ex-journalist and single
father Martin Bohm, a widower, and his mute son named Jacob. The father
is played by Kiefer Sutherland in a role that is significantly different from
his role in ‘24’. His son, played by David Mazouz, is an 11–year-old challenged
child yet gifted. The story is not explicit about the possibility that Jacob is
autistic, but some viewers with sympathy for autism want to believe this. Jacob
sees the world in numbers, and seems to have a special ability to predict
future events and make sure that people who are destined to meet, do so. His
obsession with numbers - 318 in particular - turns out to be the way he communicates with
others, mainly his father. Though he has received no formal training in complex
mathematics, he has discovered the Fibonacci sequence
on his own simply through observation and his unique perception of the world
around him. The autism spectrum indicators are his aversion to being touched, little
exhibition of emotion and he does not speak.
What makes this show so intriguing is the fact that Jacob’s
gift permits him to see things that no one else see because he sees the
patterns that connect everything in life and his way of communicating is
through numbers. Martin must decipher the meaning of the numbers and find the
people whose lives they affect. In each episode, there are always several standalone
yet interconnected storylines to which Jacob’s gift and Martin’s timely
intersections with these people bring about resolutions of long standing issues
and often healing of one kind or another.
What makes the autism premise of Jacob’s condition more
plausible is the fact that the show’s creator, Tim Kring, has experiences of
his own son who has autism. For this reason there is some assurance that as the
episodes continue, he will insure that the fictional aspects are based upon
scientific fact. It would appear that Jacob represents a side of the spectrum
on which the misdiagnosed individuals may have the ability for more advanced
forms of communication than we understand.
You can watch the first ten episodes at this FOX website
