TV Shows Watched: Vietnam: The War That Changed America- S1E5 (Apple Plus) with audio description, Surface: S2E3 (Apple plus) with audio description, The Leopard: S1E1 (Netflix) with audio description, invincible: S3E4 (Amazon) with audio description, The Baldwins: S1E2 (MAX) no audio description, Krapapolis: S2E12 (Hulu) no audio description: Grimmsburg: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, 1923: S2E2 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, and Celebrity Jeopardy: S3E? (Hulu) with audio description.
Best episode: Vietnam: The War that Changed America- Apple’s winning docuseries is well structured, narrated well both by Ethan Hawke, and the audio description team, and takes a very personal look at the Vietnam War. The fifth episode dealt with what it was like for soldiers coming home, but also soldiers who spent a bit too much time over there killing people, and prisoners of war.
Runner Up: Invincible- I’m not a giant fan of the show, but I do like it. I enjoyed how the credits started, then we spent like 15 minutes with the two characters voiced by JK Simmons and Seth Rogen, and their banter back and forth is what made me put this over having Celebrity Jeopardy in this spot.
Best Audio Description: The Leopard- A pretty strong pilot episode for this Italian period drama. A lot of world building for this family, the political climate they live in, the trappings of the period, and a decent amount of cast. This has a manageable cast size. Some AD tracks are just defeated by writers biting off more than they can chew when simply conceiving a show, and deciding to have an ensemble of 20+ people and introduce them all in the first episode. this one has maybe 10 characters of note. The ethnicity descriptions weren’t great, but perhaps implied through the location, and the historical period drama vibe. A few action set pieces were done nicely, including a tense firing squad scene.
Runner Up: 1923- I’ll give it the edge over Vietnam. I’m still not really sure what is going on in the second season, but the violence is well described. there was a really specific moment where Spencer beats up a guy, takes his gun, empties the bullets onto the floor, and then drops the gun. Then, later we see that same guy with that gun, and he’s trying to shoot. I was pretty sure the description (and the sound design) let the bullets hit the floor, so that guy must be a USDA certified Grade a dumbass.
Best Performance: Gugu Mbatha Raw (Surface)- we are all over the map today. But, while Surface is proving that it didn’t need a second season, that isn’t stopping Mbatha-Raw from being a singularly compelling actress. the show around her is just failing to be as interesting, now that she’s more aware.
Runner Up: Seth Rogen and JK Simmons (invincible)- These two have been stuck together for a few episodes, and I like their banter more than I do actually following what is going on with our lead superhero.
Best Moment Of Audio Description: The Wolf Attack (1923)- the narration really made that wolf feel like he was going to tear up a series regular. Like, i believed it. i was there. that wolf wasn’t around very long, but his presence was scarier than the entirety of the movie Cujo.
Runner Up: Something. (the Leopard)- For whatever reason, I cant’ remember any of the sweeping moments of audio description, and the poor little boy saying “I’m scared Papa” is taking up residence in my brain, but if I could remember beyond that, I’m positive there was a moment in the Leopard.
Worst of…- Two shows entered with no audio description, The Baldwins is the loser. Hilaria just isn’t an engaging reality star, Alec feels like he knows he’s on camera at all times, and even his kids feel like they are scripted. This feels so staged.
