Since this blog is as much me as it is about audio description and disability advocacy, film and television, and whatever else I put on here, it is Valentines. I hope you have a nice day. If you aren’t, I see you. For reasons I choose not to dive into openly on my blog, I’d say today is probably the single worst Valentine’s Day I’ve had, and it isn’t so much because I’m somehow uniquely single on this day all of a sudden, but rather just other shit happening. so, if you’re not having a great day, I see you. this blind guy sees you, that’s how hard I see you right now.
TV Shows Watched: Clean Slate: S1E3 (Amazon) with audio description, Cobra Kai: S6E11 (Netflix) with audio description, High Potential: S1E13 (Hulu) with audio description, The Hunting Party: S1E2 (Peacock) with audio description, Apple Cider Vinegar: S1E6 (Netflix) with audio description, the Jetty: S1E1 (Hulu) No Audio description, Surviving Black Hawk Down: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, and the Masked Singer: S13:E1 (Hulu) no audio description
Best Episode: High Potential- The season went out on a comfortable note, with a solid double whammy of cliffhangers, as the show was renewed for a second season a while back. There was no need to find any closure, and the team had their most interesting criminal so far. the audio description here was lackluster, but the finale was great.
Runner Up: Apple cider Vinegar (Netflix)- You had me until “Google It”. Fuck you. I was going to easily put this finale at the top, because it was like an hour of anxiety inducing anger and stress. but, then they end the entire limited series on “google it”. Man, the Wikipedia page on this is flagged openly for inaccuracies. No, I shouldn’t have to Google It. you made the show, you finish it.
Best Performance: Kaitlyn Dever (Apple cider Vinegar)- I think she was either the winner or runner up for 4 of the 6 episodes. I’d be shocked if she didn’t get an Emmy nomination. then again, i felt the same about Lola Pettigrew from Say nothing, and if I accumulate too many of those, I have a problem.
Runner Up: Caitlin Olsen (High Potential)- Another actress I bring up a lot, but she really turned what I initially thought was an average procedural into something I was rooting for to get a second season. She’s great in this show. I can’t wait for next year.
Best Audio Description: Surviving Black Hawk Down- Yup. Honestly, we need to occasionally recognize excellence outside of the typical genres. Sitcoms, reality, and Docuseries rarely get to be on top because their format doesn’t quite allow for as much description, but this Surviving Black Hawk Down team is doing some great work. there’s even this weird cliffhanger mic drop moment at the end of episode 2 that I thought was handled really well.
Runner up?- So, it is either the greatest audio description, or worst. And I can’t decide. I’m leaning toward great, but I could also be convinced that it was too much. My runner up is Cobra Kai. Yes, this series is typically strong, but check out the Moments section. No spoilers here, but below….
SPOILERS!
Best Moment Of Audio Description?: The Tea (Cobra Kai)- So, I’m back and forth on this, because ultimately the team focuses on something that is nothing, but then I thought… is it really nothing though? In this episode, the Cobra Kai dojo return after their loss of an actual human being, which makes the old man in charge very angry. Crease essentially quits Cobra Kai, because even this is getting too evil for him. The old man tells his granddaughter May that if she wants to inherit this dojo, she would need to do something difficult. we then have this scene between May and Crease, where May is watching Crease drink tea. And I do mean watching. Like a fucking hawk. The audio description lets us know, she’s actually paying attention to his tea drinking. So I thought… her task was to poison him. but, he’s not. She doesn’t poison him. She instead goes back, tries to kill her grandfather, who puts up a fight, but she ultimately prevails. At the end of the episode, crease is still alive. No poisoned tea. So, if the tea was never poisoned, why the fuck was she staring at it? But, that’s a sow problem, right? The audio description is just pointing out that the writers are trying to make it seem like May is tasked with killing Crease, so the tension is in drinking the tea, even if it goes nowhere. she never even acknowledges openly in dialog that her grandfather told her to kill Crease, and she never suggest to crease that his life was in danger. but I’m telling you, this AD team was on the tea drinking sequence like flies to honey. All over that. Anytime Crease took a sip, we knew. And we knew May was overly interested in this. So, like I said, it is either the greatest, because it noticed the subtext and shitty suggestion that the creators wanted us to think May had poisoned crease, even though it is NEVER verbally acknowledged. It is just a weird scene where May watches a man drink tea, and we were maybe led to believe there were nefarious purposes. So they focused on this unnecessary moment, because perhaps, it silently was very necessary? Otherwise, isn’t it just a conversation between old friends, where one of them is drinking tea?
runner Up: Apple Cider Vinegar (Got Ice?)- The moment when bell finds something in the ice was a nice shock for a series that has never gone there before. It wasn’t real, but it was still a good moment.
Worst Of- High Potential had some moments. One was when the team walked into a house, which is never described as being in a disarray, but one of the actors says something like “she must have really put up a struggle”, but we were given no visual cues to support that. there is a description of the apartment, but it is so bland, it never mentions things being strewn about in any manner. But, a friend recommended The Jetty to me (a sighted friend) so I gave it an episode. No audio description. I’m not coming back. And, I wish the Masked Singer should port its audio description to Hulu. Admittedly, i did guess the eliminated contestant. I’m also making a firm 100% correct guess. That second singer, the one who has a story to tell and is being silenced, and there was also a witch clue…. None of those judges guessed it. That’s Rose McGowan, and the witch clue is about her time on Charmed. Rose has found it very hard to work after discussing openly all her negative experiences in Hollywood, including her rape allegation against Harvey Weinstein, and a similar one against director Alexander Payne. she also mentioned casting couch behavior, where she was asked to strip down to her underwear at an audition. She’s been very vocal about men behaving badly, and doesn’t work much as a result. I think The masked Singer is giving her a platform.