Just a quick musing. I watched one of the shows below on a service I still subscribe to “with ads”, and one of the ads was a preview for a movie coming out fairly soon. It’s a horror movie, and based on the preview, I really hope it’s called “Daddy”. But, because the trailer did not have audio description, and the movie voice guy never said the title of the film, I have no idea what to anticipate or not anticipate. And it made me think of how this is the norm, and basically, we’re left to our own devices in terms of picking anything for ourselves. It is weird, but due to apathy, it is a lot harder for brands to market to blind people because most refuse to meet us where we are… with the accessibility we need. And, if they want to be too mysterious, and not say the name of the company, or product, then it is just a total waste of time. We should all be offered ad-free subscriptions, since most of them are pointless.
TV Shows Watched: Silo: S2E9 (Apple plus) with audio description, The Traitors: S3E1 (Peacock) with audio description, The Pit: S1E1 (MAX) with audio description, Dexter: Original Sin- S1E5 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, Pop Culture Jeopardy: S1E5 (Amazon) with audio description, and Celebrity Jeopardy: S3E1 (Hulu) unknown. I literally forgot to toggle the audio description on manually, which I have to do for every Hulu show.
Movies Watched: The Thicket (Tubi) no audio description, The Body Politic (Screener/PBS) with audio description, Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (screener) no audio description, Omniloop (screener) no audio description
Best Episode: Silo- Between the two Silo’s, we got a lot of drama this week in the season’s penultimate episode. Nothing more surprising than whatever Lucas is about to experience though. Now that Silo has chosen a 4 season run for itself, it can play toward an end date. That’s exciting.
Runner Up: The Traitors- I do love me some Traitors though.
Best Performance: Christian Slater (Dexter: Original Sin)- Shocking. Not someone from Silo. But, as Slater has stepped into a role we are already familiar with, there isn’t much room for him to surprise us. but, surprise he did, as Harry learned the ramifications of what happens in his personal and professional life as he continues to keep Dexter’s secret safe. this week, he made a nearly fatal error in questioning Dexter’s readiness, and for a hot second, the show, but really Slater’s performance, had me worried about the future of a character we already know their destiny.
Runner Up: Rebecca Ferguson (Silo)- As Juliet found herself in danger last week, she rebounded, and did so with urgency, and later with warmth. She managed to somehow perfectly thread a needle in a very volatile situation, and leave everything in a best case scenario. A quietly dynamic episode for her, after spending most of the season with Steve Zahn, and just Steve Zahn.
Best Audio Description: Silo- For reasons I list every week. The massive ensemble, maintaining two storylines for two silo’s, and that entire vibe of dystopian science fiction the show has.
Runner Up: Dexter: Original Sin- This had its moments, at least. I think The Pit could have done more with character introductions considering it is a pilot. Bring me in. Who are these people, and what do they look like? dexter at least had some tense sequences.
Best Moment Of Audio Description: The body Politic- So, this is a movie. I was provided a screener for my consideration, and I’ve already put a review on my YouTube. The review reflected the screener that lacked accessibility. The director of the film saw the review, the lack of accessibility, and even though my review was already basically glowing, he still took the time to reach out to me and provide me with the audio description for the film. This was something that aired on PBS, so you should be able to find it on some website/app, however you access PBS content that isn’t live. The fact that someone cared enough to do this makes this the best moment. No runners up today.
Worst Of… anything?: The Traitors: Sweet baby Jesus. I hate the audio description to this. Someone pointed out to me that Season 1 was originaly TTS and they changed it to human. look, this isn’t much better. The human voice is AI-adjacent. There’s very little inflection ever in the tone. Also, the description, what they do describe, when, and how, is all so baffling. i understand the complexities of working around dialogue, but I think only one character was introduced along with the show they came from. it requires a blind viewer to either do research, watch a fuck load of reality television so i can have these voices engrained in my brain, or just sit back and wonder what the hell is going on? Aside from a few interactions Alan had with a mystery opponent, there was no meaningful description. I could have watched this without audio description and gotten a nearly identical experience. I think maybe 5 people were named? Six? Total? And I’m pretty sure only one was labeled with the show they came from, even though you hear these people talking about being Real housewives, Big Brother, survivor, or whatever. I’ve never actually enjoyed the AD for this show. I do actually watch the international versions of The Traitors, and wish Peacock would describe all of them. But, not like this. I jumped into a few different reality shows in 2024, so I feel like I can be harsh. The people at ViTech must hate me, because I constantly drag their work. You know what? Make better quality audio description, and I will stop dragging everything you touch. A very similar show, The GOAT aired on Amazon last year, which had Daniel Tosh bringing in a bunch of random reality show people, and that had far better audio description. Far. Tell your writers to watch that show, and then try again on this one. Or, better yet, Peacock… just hire the team that did The GOAT. Three seasons in, and with international versions piling in from all over, I’m well versed in the ways of the round table. Some countries still just use regular folk. But if the gimmick is a bunch of reality stars and famous rejects, then embrace it, and make sure we know why these people are there when you introduce them. I think this is the most I’ve written about anything in this worst of column since I started doing it, but I really hate the audio description for this.
