TV News- Well, I guess Kerry Washington won’t be meeting her estranged mother anymore on her Hulu comedy UnPrisoned, which has been cancelled after two seasons. It’s a shame, because her co-star, Delroy Lindo, was excellent. I was always rooting for him for a surprise Emmy nomination, just like I wanted him recognized for his excellent work on Da Five Bloods. He goes under the radar far too often.
TV Shows Watched: The Ark: S2E10 (Peacock) with audio description, Daryl Dixon: S2E1 (AMC Plus) No audio description, Mr McMahon- S1E3 and S1E4 (Netflix) with audio description, Nobody Wants This- S1E4 (Netflix) with audio description, How To Die Alone- S1E8 (Hulu) with audio description, Justified: S6E11 (Hulu) no audio description, Bad Monkey: S1E7 (Apple plus) with audio description, and Tulsa King: S2E3 (Paramount Plus) with audio description.
Podcasts: I listened to an Agatha All Along podcast. There are a couple.
YouTube: the Awards Contender (Review: megalopolis)
Movies Watched: RezBall (Netflix) with audio description
So, hot takes?
The Ark- Difuse is making the cheapest sounding human audio description they can find. I often think this is AI, then I realize, no… it’s Diffuse. It sounds cheaply made, with the balancing (audio ducking) noticeable. Plus, the narrator is pretty monotone, bringing nothing to action sequences, and the writing is often lackluster and uninspired. Diffuse should want more from itself, but honestly, I’m surprised The Ark even got a second season. If it gets a third, I’ll shit myself. Much better shows get far less, and this cast has some questionable actors, and poor writing.
Mr McMahon- So even though I’m not done with the show, I feel like the best thing I can say about this is that it works well as a docuseries for people who aren’t expecting this to be an emphatic endorsement of wrestling. If you came to this thinking it would be like a documentary of Smackdown, you’d be disappointed. The show isn’t formatted this way, and it even reminds us that while filming, the scandal with Vince McMahon hit, so a lot of this was filmed prior. This is peeling back the curtain, through a mostly talking head format, and Diane Newman does a nice job narrating. I’m sure Jeff Heck is worried about the balance of footage being shown and being described. Talking Head documentaries are just a format that is impossible to really manage sometimes without some kind of extended audio description format, that would stop to explain what images are being shown while someone is talking. Otherwise, the brief moments in between are all you have. I’ve seen documentaries that give even less time than this.
And my last hot take is that I am falling in love with Nobody Needs This, the new Kristen Bell/Adam Brody comedy on Netflix. Bad Monkey and Tulsa King both had strong episodes, but Nobody Needs This is my critics pick if you’re looking for a new show to watch.