TV News: Day Two. the Handmaids Tale: S6E8 still has no audio description. Still. This is preventing me from moving forward, and it is a true statement as of this writing (as I just checked before posting this). Maybe it will change later today.
TV Shows Watched: Black mirror: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, Andor: S2E10 (Disney plus) with audio description, Ghosts: S4E20 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, Will Trent: S3E17 (Hulu) with audio description, The Pitt: S1E3 (MAX) with audio description, The Stolen Girl: S1E2 (Disney Plus) no audio description, Bad Thoughts: S1E1 (Netflix) with audio description, The daily Show: Tuesday (Paramount Plus) no audio description, Poker Face: S2E1 (Peacock) with audio description.
Best Episode: Andor- man, the back half of Season 2 has been in one hell of a stride. It is a full episode and there’s no Diego Luna. No cassian. no Andor. It is Luthien’s episode and Stellan Skarsgard is perfection. Loved this episode, and it answered a lot of questions before Andor eventually becomes Rogue one.
Runner Up: Poker Face- the hitmen just rolling up in random places in front of everyone and firing on Charlie is a bit much, but the episode had Cynthia Erivo playing five different characters. Plus, Charlie figured out all the bullshit like she always does. I’m so happy this is back.
Best Audio Description: Andor- I laughed. We made a choice to have a character stand on their “tippy toes”, which is just so adorable. I thought tiptoes would be enough, but I love that Jedidiah Barton full committed to “tippy toes”, because whoever writes the narration for Andor likely colloquially has used that. It made me think about all the little regional-isms. Like when someone drinks a soda, or a pop. Considering how much I’m now used to hearing “torch”, “lift”, and “boot”, because of the prevalence of UK audio description, I was thinking on a larger scale that perhaps this amalgamation of audio description from different regions is our version of blind culture. It isn’t quite as strong as deaf culture, but if you hear a red blooded American ask to put his luggage in the boot, he’s probably a blind guy that watches a ton of programs with audio description. Or, he secretly grew up in London. one of those things. Either way, I loved this episode, and the weight it gave to Luthien.
runner Up: Bad thoughts- Not as big of a fan of the show, but considering the absurdist humor, there’s certainly a lot to describe with visual significance. It deserves a mention here, even if I liked Poker Face a lot as well. Bad thoughts had to describe some gross out humor, unnecessarily violent humor, and all this stuff Tom Segura is pumping into his new six episode anthology comedy series. Job well done.
Best performance: Cynthia erivo (Poker Face)- She upstages Natasha Lyonne in the return of he show! Erivo is excellent. Five different characters, in a plot that also has characters switching around. It must have been a pain in the ass to remember who she was, and I’m sure this was crazy to film.
Runner Up: Stellan Skarsgard (Andor)- he’s offered a lot of weight to the show as one of the steadiest character actors around we seemingly forget to ever recognize. this episode was massively significant to his character, who has essentially been the number two on this show since the beginning. No spoilers, but he just was terrific.
Best Moment Of Audio Description: Goodbye (Andor)- I really thought, with the way the episode built, that the final moments, when we see that the culmination of what the flashbacks and current story were leading to, ended up being successful, meant that we were left with both the elation of a mission accomplished and also the appropriate weight of the scene itself, and how it shapes the series moving into its last two episodes. Really well done.
Runner Up: A truly Inept Hitman (Bad thoughts)- That first sequence, which really sets a huge tone moving forward, not just had this bizarrely unnecessary violent moment, bug also featured an unnecessary amount of… shit. Like, actual shit. And we get it… in the description. Is it a win for us? depends on how funny you think this is, but it certainly was a major attempt to get the audio description just right.
the Worst: Hulu still not fixing The Handmaids Tale is a big thing. Also, I swear to God I remember seeing someone in the AD community taking credit for working on The Stolen Girl. is this not a thing? lol. Y’all know how to reach me. If you did the work, we should get Disney to use it. And, I’ll even throw me into the worst, because I’m enjoying The Pitt more on the rewatch. It still has way too big of an ensemble, and is trying to do a lot, but Noah Wyle is really good. I wonder how successful he would be in faking playing a doctor in real life. like, how much does he know? After all these years, if we were in an emergency, has he picked up any useful knowledge?