Because a local channel in here bought the rights to show The Good Doctor, from what I can gleam from the ads, it just feels a lot like the stereotypical savant "oh he's the best at this task but he's also... gasp... COMPASSIONATE and all these sad neurotypical people just can't love like him" which reinforces a lot of bad stereotypes of neurodivergent people being on a higher plane of existence. It sounds positive at first, until people start lumping everyone together as saintly and innocent.
Another big thing to add to depth is to try and think of the character's path to a conclusion in their thoughts. My protagonist, Mortimer, is driven by selfish ideals turned into obsessive selflessness. He's sure he's this great person that can be very cool, but has also stuck in his mind that it only means he's got more people to disappoint and things to break, and needs to compensate his actions at every turn by sacrificing himself to elevate someone else or make up for a mistake.
Whenever he does something, even if it's for plot reasons, I always try to go back to his plan of thought and see what would convince him to act like this. I had a scene later on where he saves another character from bandits by jumping ahead, but as it turns out, that's completely OOC, because he'd be leaving his children open to an ambush. So, (since the scene would get too long to set him up to check on them first), I instead changed them to being together, but suddenly Mort sees someone stuck in a trap and helps them as fast as possible, only to let someone else do the talking because he got flustered with a compliment. He's trying to process that he did a good thing and he's not about to get yelled at for showing up at all, but it takes a bit.
Backstories are useful as a starting point, but especially for major characters, you need to get into their head to make scenes that feel believable. Even if they have a single braincell to share between them; there's usually a method to their recklessness.
