TV Shows Watched: The White Lotus: S3E5 (MAX) with audio description, American Idol: S23E3 (Disney Plus) no audio description, Tracker: S2E? (Paramount Plus) with audio description, clean Slate: S1E8 (Amazon) with audio description, Krapapolis: S2E12 (Hulu) no audio description, Win Or Lose: S1E5 (Disney Plus) with audio description, Real time With bill Maher: Most Recent (MAX) no audio description, Last Week Tonight: Most recent (MAX) no audio description.
Best Episode: The White Lotus- Certainly Rick and frank had a conversation that took a whole new direction, but Tim had a great moment near the end where he was clearly battling his demons. Some of the women are also starting to get some good work thrown their way, like Amy Lou Wood.
Runner Up: Win Or Lose- that episode with the little brother was adorable. He kept seeing the world in this different way, and it reminded me so much of being a kid myself and creating your own adventures. It doesn’t necessarily make you cool, but you think you are, and that’s all that really matters.
Best Audio Description- Win or Lose- It just had that element with the kaleidoscope that allowed for some really cool transitions for the audio description, by telling us what was really happening, but then seeing what adventure the little brother was imagining. This is what is Pixar’s strength, and the audio description captured it perfectly.
Runner Up: the White Lotus- From dancing in the club, to having a deep conversation with a friend, and preparing to say goodbye, the description for this found all the right beats.
Best performance: Walton Goggins and Murray Bartlett (The White Lotus)- Rick runs into an old friend, Frank (Bartlett), who has really reached a deep understanding of who he is as a person. I’m not going to say more than that, but I thought Murray’s performance was a standout for putting all of that out into the world, and Walton’s Rick was great as he received it with a seemingly open, yet likely totally blown, mind.
Runner Up: Shut The Fuck Up (American Idol)- this had to be a gag. She must be an online influencer. that song was too funny, and too well written for her to be a “bad” audition, but it certainly seemed to be the bad audition for the season, though it was easily the most entertaining. I want the unedited version of that song. I didn’t catch her name, since there’s no audio description to tell me who she was with the text that likely popped up on screen, but if she’s online, I’m betting her followers went through the roof. if I was a judge, I would have put her through, just to see what happens next, even though she technically never really sang.
Best Moment Of Audio Description: Meteor Attack! (Win Or Lose)- the start of the episode finds us watching our little protagonist and he narrates a seemingly cataclysmic event, which the audio description indulges, and we find out he’s just lying in the grass looking through a kaleidoscope.
Runner Up: the girls Are Out (clean Slate)- I don’t think I’ve ever recognized this show. Maybe once. but, in the final episode,there was a description of Cox’s character as it seemed like she was finally ready to accept that a certain guy likes her, and marching right up to his house… where he was on a date. but, the description of her outfit, and the specificity that her cleavage was showing set the tone for what was supposed to happen, even if her plans are interrupted.
Worst Of…- 4 Shows Without AD today. Damn. I still am holding American Idol to the fire though. these auditions were shot months ago, and even an incompetent audio description team would have had ample time to put together a track. 23 seasons, and no one at Idol, ABC, or Disney has thought that perhaps blind people might like to know a bit more about these contestants? this isn’t the voice, where the judges can’t see the singers. This is often based on looks and performance skills, so having audio description at least in the early non-live episodes would give us an understanding of who the singers are before we ever get to live voting.
