• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

Those familiar with the French police procedural “Astrid” will wonder what took somebody so long to make an English-language version.

Thankfully, that time has come with the arrival in the United States of “Patience” premiering Sunday on PBS.

The show’s title has changed and so has the name of the title character. She was Astrid in France, and then became Patience in the U.K. And now, patience has paid off because she is now here in America.

Patience Evans -- played by Ella Maisy Purvis (above photo) -- is another in a growing number of TV characters on the autism scale.

The term “autism scale” is a very general phrase now in wide use, but the TV Blog is no expert on its meaning.

On TV, however, it usually applies to persons who possess difficulty in social situations (especially intimate ones), exhibit obsessive-compulsive tendencies for organization, order and tidiness, and are particularly gifted in their professions.

On ABC, it was “The Good Doctor.” On British TV and PBS, it was “Professor T,” a college professor of criminal psychology with OCD and social challenges who helped police solve difficult cases.

In “Patience,” the heroine of the title seeks a way into the world of police investigations. In Episode One, she seems to have found it.

She has one foot in the door already. With her organizational fixations, she is a born archivist who works as a functionary in the police records department in the city of York in the U.K.

A man who immolates himself in the show’s opening scene gives Patience an opportunity to distinguish herself when the lead detective on the case, Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf (Laura Fraser), orders a file from a similar case.

Patience then delivers files for a lot more cases than Det. Metcalf asked for because, as Patience informs her, these other cases bear similarities to the other cases.

Patience is the only person who is aware of them. It is another tool in her autistic toolkit -- an uncanny ability to recall details and facts and, most importantly, how they probably fit together,

Naturally, this unusual young woman draws the attention of Det. Metcalf and the two begin a working relationship.

It is the same scenario as the French “Astrid,” which was previously seen on PBS stations just a short time ago.

In the press material for “Patience,” Patience is described as “neurodivergent,” a reference to the way she views the world differently than everyone else.

Whether or not “Patience” accurately portrays autism or neurodivergence is something the TV Blog cannot answer. 

“Patience” premieres Sunday, June 15, at 8 p.m. Eastern on PBS.