The Brothers Sun (Netflix) continued its unique brand of action and comedy and the mystery of exterminating all evil… by doing evil? An interesting series, but Michelle Yeoh is mostly criminally underused. It’s like this movie didn’t know she was about to win an Oscar. I made good on my promise to watch a second episode of Death And Other Details (Hulu), because of Mandy Patinkin and he isn’t disappointing. He’s terrific, and while the show is incredibly borderline going week to week as to whether or not I’d watch another episode, it’s on the bubble because of him.
Echo (Disney Plus) actually had some interesting audio description as we explored the dynamic of Kingpin and Maya in the 4th episode. It was unexpected to see Kingpin’s softer side after being shot in the face, but he clearly wanted Maya to rejoin him. We all love a good redemption arc, or antihero, and not enough villains truly get their due, so of course we know where this show is headed for the final episode. This is five episodes, right?
And what should have been less episodes is Monarch (Apple Plus), which is just this giant companion series to the film universe. Wanted more character development? Here’s an entire series of people talking. The 9th episode, which occurs after some of our core group are now in the Kaiju zone, is just too much dialog. Luckily, Jedidiah Barton is still narrating.
And, I did knock out another episode of The Crown (Netflix), where William and Kate got closer, the Queen Mother died, and Harry is getting portrayed as a petulant child. This show does have one of the best audio descriptions, but I’ve seen complaints about over interpreting. For example, when the Queen is having yet another conversation with her Prime Minister, when they are done talking, it mentions that Tony Blair is finished talking and sits quietly waiting for the Queen to dismiss him. However, that’s an interpretation of how things are, not really what is. You are diving into the head of the character and thinking about intentions, like an actor would do, instead of necessarily describing the scene as is. Of course, the alternative might be “Blair sits in silence.”, which is admittedly more boring than the actual description, though possibly more accurate. I still believe it’s impossible to describe too much, but perhaps trying to think about an actors intentions in that moment could be used to describe something else in that same frame?
Also, while catching up on some soldiers with audio description, shoutout to Fleabag (Amazon) and Veep (MAX) for having audio description on their respective services even though they ended a few years back.