In TV News, the next Presidential Debate will be on September 4th between Trump and Harris, which will air on FOX News. Unsurprisingly, former President Trump has declined the previously suggested ABC debate.It will probably be at 9PM EST, and run for 90 minutes like the previous debate. As far as the rules go, there’s no reason to believe this would match the devious debate rules.
TV Shows Watched: A Good Girls Guide To Murder: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, Batman: Caped Crusader: S1E3 and S1E4 (Amazon) with audio description, Desperate Housewives: S2E10 (Hulu) no audio description, and today’s feature.
Podcasts: Post Reports (Politics), The Daily (Current Events), and Pod Save America (Politics) (all listened to on Apple Podcasts using speed modification)
YouTube: FishJelly Film Reviews (Review: Trapped), The Oscar Expert (Review: Trapped), and Adam Does Rants (his second channel for non-movie related content. I find him that amusing)
Movies: Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Story (Netflix)
Today’s Feature:
Lady in The Lake: S1E4 (Apple plus)
I’ve mentioned this show before, but with a 7 episode run, this feels like the right time to mention it again. As a murder mystery, how are we doing? The catalyst murder happened in the first episode, which has sent Natalie Portman’s budding reporter on a journey of self-discovery, all against a landscape where women are still socially expected to be attached to a man, and in a racially divided community. We’ve been watching Cleo’s (Moses Ingram) story evolve too, though she’s been alive thus far, though with her narration suggesting imminent death. After all Cleo has been through, is this finally the episode to do it?
What I Look For In Audio Description: First and foremost, this is a murder mystery. And while this episode may suggest very little wiggle room on the “who killed Cleo” front, we still have no idea who killed the girl in the premiere. So, the clues matter, people’s reaction to questions matter, and every little piece could be a much bigger item later on. This show is still clearly very much about race, with these communities represented being pretty overwhelmingly black or Jewish, and owning that. I would say after watching 4 episodes, it would reinforce how characters should be introduced in the premiere. This is a time capsule film, so things that would help bring out that era, in terms of costume and production design are also very much still welcome. The show does use several locations repeatedly, so the repeated locations should feel more lived in, than perhaps somewhere we only go once.
What It Has Been Doing: I brought up this episode specifically because of the attention to detail. For example, we see someone pulling on a set of gloves, which is then backed up by us also seeing that same character drag and dump a body in the lake. While the description of the body doesn’t declare that it visibly is Cleo, it is heavily implied through the set up of actions in the show. yet, I like that there could be some weird twist, where he killed and dumped someone else instead, and maybe we’ve been dealing with an unreliable narrator. We don’t see the kill sequence, just like we didn’t for the little girl, and there has to be a reason for that. I thought the interview session was well done, as she pushed the tape recorder to the side, and pulled out her materials to take notes. She didn’t put the recorder away, and there’s no real indication that it wasn’t recording him still. There seems to be a fiar amount of attention to detail here, given both by the script, but also the audio description, and it is working as a murder mystery. We probably could have done more with the descriptions in the beginning, and also could still be doing more to support the time period. But, its primary function is to support the mystery element, and it does that well.
Final Thoughts: An interesting show that has decent audio description. Much like I mentioned before the finale of Presumed Innocent, it really isn’t until the killer reveal that you know for sure if the audio descritpion did its job, and supported all the little things you should have noticed along the way.
