What’s it Cracked up to be?

Here amid the builders’ debris and bones with Panther tooth marks on them we’ve been enjoying the new STV drama Cracked.
It’s about the residents of a private rehab clinic and how they, and their disparate dysfunctions, interact. The couple, Rory and Louise, who run the clinic, are fighting their own battles as their daughter, Lily, has just been diagnosed as autistic. We see them grapple to make sense of this news and what it means for them and their little girl.
This is great – it’s really good to see a realistic view of autism. Writer Clare Hemphill (the one who isn’t in it too) has an autistic child, so she knows. It’s really important for ordinary parents of spectrum kids to know they aren’t alone in what they’re going through. It also raises the profile of the fabulous National Autistic Society and that alone deserves a cheer.
However, I’m a bit puzzled how two people such as Louise and Rory clearly experienced in the way the human mind often deviates from the norm are baffled by lovely Lily’s autism.
OK, I’m sure a bit of denial is pretty common (hands up, I did). But after that surely they’d have read up a bit (some of their professional text books are bound to detail the condition and, then, there’s always Dr Internet). I find myself screaming at them: ‘Look on your book case, behind you! This is your job, more or less!’
That said, it’s still a cracking show. Tune in.