Kicking it off with some TV news, Disney Plus has cancelled Renegade Nell after one season. This streamer has a really really hard time creating shows that run multiple seasons, and an even harder one doing it without Marvel or Star Wars. This is disappointing, but expected in many ways.
TV Shows Watched: Cobra Kai: S6E3 (Netflix) with audio description, The Traitors UK: S2E? (Peacock) No Audio Description, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart- Monday’s Episode (Paramount Plus) No Audio Description, Regular Show: S1E7 (MAX) No Audio Description, and All In The family: S5E19 (FreeVee) No Audio Description. Plus, today’s feature at the bottom.
Podcasts (All used Apple podcast with speed modification)- America Dissected (Fat Joe discusses healthcare transparency) and The Big Picture (the crew breaks down the entire filmography of Sidney Lumet for what would have been his 100th birthday).
YouTube: The Awards Contender (Top 10 Category Fraud At The Oscars In Lead Acting Categories) and Film Threat (Spoiler Discussion of Deadpool and Wolverine)
Movies: Deadpool And Wolverine (with audio description, deluxe, narrated by Jedidiah Barton)
And Now The Feature…
UnPrisoned: S2E4 (Hulu)
Specifically, this episode dealt with a lot. Kerry Washington’s character deals with whether or not she’s ready to be friends with her ex, and also whether or not she might have feelings for another woman, all while still worrying about what her father is up to, and why her son has a black eye, and having to deal with the physical manifestation of her childhood jumping out at her randomly. Her son, meanwhile, is really just interested in maybe knowing more about his father, after hearing he was this musician who dedicated his first album to him. Meanwhile, Delroy Lindo is trying to hold down his job when he finds out an old associate got pinched, and he’s worried it might blow back on him while he’s trying to rebuild his life. After having a very odd conversation with his situation ship, who does some digging for him, he decides not to run, and to be open with his daughter about his worries.
What I Look For In The Audio Description: So, we are in season 2, and most of the characters here have already appeared before in other episodes. In general, this show is very much about racial identity. Phineas (the son) is biracial, and the lightness of his skin tone has been brought up in previous episodes, as part of the story, not necessarily just audio description. There’s very much a thread about a black man being released from jail and trying to find a better life, and those struggles, and even Kerry Washington’s character has to deal with (in the first season), why she’s dating a white guy. So, because they openly discuss it, it is important in character descriptions. That being said, there’s really only one notable fresh character to this episode, so this episode is not the episode to judge the whole series by. The other major mechanic at play here is that Kerry’s adult version has a tween version of herself that pops out as her physical manifestation of the conversation she’s having in her head with her inner child. In this episode, she literally pops out of a shower. So, dealing with where this girl comes from and how she disappears is important. Otherwise, continuing to enhance the choices made by the great actors on this underrated Hulu series is fine, and other typical stuff we tend to want from all tracks.
What It Does: It certainly supports the actors. Season 1 was so long ago, that character introductions in audio description is something I can’t remember. They openly discuss most of it in dialogue, and I already knew who Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo were going into this, and didn’t give it that much thought. The show typically handles the little girl well, and it is decent audio description. I like the choice of narrator here. I think she frequently works for Hulu. I don’t think I’ve heard her doing anything not on Hulu, but I believe she also recently did Life And Beth. I don’t know that this audio description goes above and beyond, but it works to support the series, and does a fine job at least from a season 2 perspective.
Final Thoughts: I love Kerry from her Scandal days, but I’m here for Delroy Lindo, consistently a very underrated actor. He should have heard his name called for Oscar consideration for Da Five Bloods. You probably aren’t watching this, but maybe you should be?