TV News: Netflix has ordered a second season of the excellent Keira Knightley/Ben Whishaw spy series black Doves. They are also looking to reboot Little House On The Prairie, and considering shows like Virgin River, My Life With The Walter Boys, and other similar shows, I think it’s a safe bet for them. Will it live longer than Anne With An E?
TV Shows Watched: Prime Target: S1E3 (Apple Plus) with audio description, The Night Agent: S2E6 (Netflix) with audio description, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man: S1E1 (Disney Plus) with audio description, Paradise: S1E3 (Hulu) with audio description, American Primeval: S1E5 (Netflix) with audio description, and Landman: S1E? (Paramount Plus) with audio description.
Movies Watched: Waterworld (Netflix) with audio description, Pretty Woman (MAX) with audio description
Best Episode: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Disney plus)- Aside from knowing this was coming, in knew very little about it. it feels like Marvel is tapping into the previous success Marvel animation had with Spider-Man, the same way they had with X-Men. But, this Peter Parker is totally different than any currently existing Parker, and has a different set of friends. I’m not such a fan that I can claim to know this iteration of Spidey, but as a pilot, we got to see him become Spider-Man without needing to kill Uncle Ben, so that was a win in my book. Also, the pilot has a cameo from Doctor Strange, who sounds like the casting was influenced by Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice, but that isn’t him.
Runner Up: Paradise (Hulu)- While the show hasn’t lived up to the pilot, there are still interesting choices here. I did also really enjoy the backstory between Brown’s character and his father.
best Performance: Sterling K Brown (Paradise)- third day in a row. I don’t agree with all the choices the series is making, but he is able to Cary emotional weight rather well, for a character that seems emotionally detached. You can hear it when he talks about his late wife, but also in the story about his relationship with his father, and the difficult decision he had to make.
Runner Up: Arianne Mendes (The Night Agent)- the relatively unknown actress has been doing the heavy lifting this season as Nor, a double agent Iranian aide working to get her family out of Iran before her brother enters mandatory conscription. Things don’t go as planned, and she’s risked everything. I think Episode 6, which puts her character in a cliffhanger, really made me realize what she’s meant to the second season, and in a sea of rather average actors, she’s been delivering a strong performance every time she gets a chance. hopefully, casting agents are taking note, because she is the clear standout this season.
best Audio Description: Prime Target (Apple Plus)- I’m not sure anything is perfect or exceptional, but I’m giving Prime Target the slight edge here.
Runner Ups: Paradise (Hulu) and American Primeval (Netflix)- Trying to choose between those three shows was a challenge.
best Moment Of Audio Description: The Library Sequence (Prime Target)- the whole reason I gave the show the edge. It has action in it, but it also is creeping around, and misdirection. A lot in that scene was accomplished, and appreciated.
runner Up: The Spider (Your friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)- While the series goes for a color blind approach to a character previously celebrated for making bold casting choices with Miles Morales, or Zendaya as MJ, which is why I didn’t make the cut as a track, I thought how they tracked the infamous spider that bites Peter was well done.
Worst Of…?- I mean, yeah. They don’t really do great character description for the new Spidey series. I realized too, that there’s inferred references, like specific hairstyles typically applied to a certain group. I think that’s a sly way to get something in there, but it also doesn’t really help diversity as a whole. If you tell me that a character has dreads, for example, and my brain uses stereotypes to make an implied connection, then we have one incident of semi-representation. but, how are you going to stereotypically do that for every other character? What innately makes a character white, for example? the problem with that, is there isn’t one dead giveaway in the description. So, it ends up as defaulting,which sets the viewer up as the decider of who is what. The problem with that is, that audio description bridges a gap. This is the thing I’ve never understood about audio description that veers away from this, is that sighted kids look at this show, and no matter what their background or ethnicity is, they can see if they are represented on screen. They can see a diverse cast. Blind kids are offered an intentionally sanitized version that feels like by bringing it up, or calling attention to it, that it somehow puts emphasis on it when it isn’t necessary. But, what the sighted people who keep making these calls don’t connect, is that without that information, we then have to fill in any gaps the audio description doesn’t fill. So, in some ways that could be fun. the guy with dreads doesn’t need to be black, I could picture a white guy with dreads just as easily. Maybe my brain pictures this Peter as an indigenous American. It can all be fun and games, until you realize blind people don’t live on an island together, and frequently interact with sighted people. So instead of having a “make it what you want” approach, I’m actually just misinformed, and behind in conversations with sighted people, who then have to take time to explain to me all the things some sighted corporate person told the audio description team to not include. It is a silly vicious cycle, but it is one where people who are above me are making decisions about what I do get to know, and don’t get to know, based not on a broader content curation, but a specific one that targets me based on my disability. And these choices go beyond just this track, and are made every single time someone decides what does get audio description, and what does not. Someone is choosing what information I get, based on my disability. Non-blind individuals can have full access, whereas we cannot.