BY ADAM THOMLISON

Q: Can you tell me about the new show “The Good Doctor,” especially the actor who plays Dr. Murphy? He reminds me of my 10-year-old autistic nephew.

A: Freddie Highmore would likely be flattered by your review of his performance.

His character in the freshman ABC drama “The Good Doctor” is Dr. Shaun Murphy, a gifted young surgeon who also happens to be autistic.

“We all feel a sense of pressure, or perhaps responsibility, to portray Shaun as authentically as possible,” Highmore told Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Your review suggests he’s actually on the right track. This shouldn’t be too surprising, though — Highmore is a gifted actor, and one of the few who have been able to turn child stardom into adult success.

That said, though he’s now 25, his still babyish face means he continues to play characters who are to some degree defined by their youth. His “Good Doctor” character is still a doctor in training, with skills that are very advanced for his age. His previous role was playing a young(er) Norman Bates in A&E’s “Bates Motel.”

But he’s still probably best known for an early-career run of huge roles when he was very young. It started in 2004 when he played Peter in “Finding Neverland,” the Johnny Depp-

starring biopic of the creator of Peter Pan. The next year he had an even bigger role, the title role in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” again opposite Depp.

Q: Didn’t one of the networks already try to do a show back in the ‘80s with a young black actor portraying a mayor? I think the young man playing the mayor was actor Robert Hooks’ son. Am I right?

A: You’re bang on. A full 31 years before ABC debuted this year’s new sitcom “The Mayor” (which I assume is the modern show you’re referring to in your question), the same network aired “He’s the Mayor.”

While the new show is about a struggling hip-hop artist who runs for mayor as a stunt to promote his album and then basically wins by accident, the older show had a (slightly) more believable premise — an inexperienced young man is elected mayor in a rush after the incumbent dies in office. In terms of the basic joke, however, they amount to the same thing: a culture-clash story in which an unprepared young man steeped in urban black culture must deal with the niceties and not-so-niceties of city politics.

Similar as they are, the new show is not a remake, even though they air on the same network. They are based in different locations, and none of the people involved in “He’s the Mayor” are credited in the new show.