Last night, I was on the panel discussing this years nominees at the Oscars, and their audio description tracks. I had a blast, and a huge shoutout to The Audio Description project, The American Council of The Blind, and my fellow panelists Erika, Carl, and Renee, for inviting me to be a part of the experience. No idea how broadly watched this program was, but I did really have fun talking about this year’s best films. I wish Poor Things had its VOD drop already so I could have been 10/10 of the Best Picture nominees.
On the TV side, I finished Squid Game: The Challenge (Netflix), which has such a weird ending. Catching up with the players in that odd montage? I already said I didn’t care who won of these three last week, and I still don’t. This show invested so much more in eliminated contestants that I felt like I wasn’t really even sure who these three were. I’d make a lot of changes before next season, including eliminating dumb challenges that just get the number down to something. Restructure the game so technically, there COULD be more than one winner if they survive all the various games, and stop adding things like “pressing a button” as a challenge.
I also wrapped Fargo (Hulu) finally, and this show really came in clutch with the audio description in the final episode. It actually focuses on camera angles in one interesting segment, which is often lacking in audio description, especially episodic. Big thank you to the team behind Fargo for creating such strong audio description this season, which is my favorite season of the show thus far. Jon Hamm was terrifying, Jennifer Jason Leigh was brilliant, and Juno Temple has never been better. Throw this some Emmy love.
I did also knock out another episode of Has Been hotel (Amazon), Feud (Hulu), and So Help Me Todd (Paramount Plus). But, the one I want to talk about the most is The Connors (Hulu). The third episode of Season 6 very much felt like a farewell to the grand-matriarch of the Connors clan as Bev ended up on a train bound for somewhere. Jackie got everything she’s really ever wanted. But, since this new season started there has been a focus on audio description for various returning ABC shows as we try and analyze what their cost-cutting structure was for these shows. There was a notable dip in quality for Abbott Elementary and Not Dead Yet, but I felt The Rookie was on par with its previous season, at least with a negligible amount of change in quality. I kinda feel the same way about The Connor’s. However, I wouldn’t have ever lifted this up as an example of stunning audio description. Last year I pointed out that there was an episode where the narrator clearly didn’t check the script, or know what they were saying, and knew nothing about the show. The writer likely had forgotten to put the E in Louise, so Katey Sagal’s character was called Louis, in one scene. It may seem like a little thing, but it speaks to the structure of quality going into the show, as well as whichever blind person is signing off on the audio description. Do I feel like that has changed? no. I still think this is average audio description. There’s nothing exceptional about it, but I would argue it is pretty serviceable. It just doesn’t hit everything. I don’t know if they feel deterred by the laugh track, or what, but listening to other sitcoms like Friends, they are doing it better with the audio description for that classic sitcom on MAX. And that has a laugh track. I don’t see a noticeable dip in quality here, but that’s not really a compliment either. Average and serviceable aren’t exactly a love language.
