TV Shows Watched: Daryl Dixon: S2E4 (AMC Plus) No Audio Description, Teacup: S1E4 (Peacock) with audio description, Hysteria: S1E2 (Peacock), Have I Got News For You: S1E6? (MAX) no audio description, Tulsa King: S2E5? (Paramount Plus), and the Lincoln Lawyer: S3E1 (Netflix) with audio description.
Podcasts: None
YouTube: the Awards Contender (Best Supporting Actor predictions)
Movies Watched: bagman (Apple Store) with audio description, Strange Darling (Apple Store) with audio description
I’m bestowing an award. I don’t know which one, but I’m gonna snatch some audio description award and give it to whoever is writing the Lincoln Lawyer this season. While we can appreciate the usual attention to detail, like with how crime scene footage is captured, or any of the usual details, I’d much rather focus on something very unexpected. it is something we rarely get, and something we often take for granted. hell, it is something I don’t even require. this is above and beyond shit. I’ve mentioned before, and died on the hills of sequels, where they try to not use the name of a character, which is stupid. I had this debate about the last Mission Impossible sequel, which doesn’t use Ethan’s name, and tries to make it seem like it could be anyone, despite being the 7th film in the franchise. I don’t care if somehow telling the audience he’s Ethan Hunt up front ruins it for someone who made a conscious choice to not watch the previous six movies. And, the verification they even used to start using the name was him watching a video, that said Ethan. like no one has ever gotten ahold of a video that wasn’t theirs before. Right?
But here we are in season 3, with the start of a new season. Sure, we have some new characters this season, for the new mystery, but we also have returning characters.And I know detractors will rise up, and hate this scene. they used handsome, which is subjective in nature, but I get what you’re trying to say. He is the leading man of the series, I kind of assumed he’s probably easy on the eyes. but, Mickey, aka The Lincoln Lawyer, is standing in front of his fridge for a hot second meditating on life, and the narration actually describes him. They describe him as if we’ve never seen him before, and the description was quite substantial. Not just “dark hair”, or something easy. They took the time to come up with a brief, meaningful description of a character who has 20 episodes under his belt. I wouldn’t have even expected it, but when it happened, I immediately knew which show I was writing about in this section the next day.
Often, we just don’t have the time. there are too many returning characters, and to be honest, I’m not even sure they all got described. Hell, this isn’t even the opening of the episode, and he’s already been seen. But the fact that someone decided, he’s just staring at his fridge and we should use this time wisely, and put introductory audio description to the series lead in the third season i think warrants a mention. Like, a badge, or a medal, or at least steal some kids soccer participation trophy. Something.
Think about how many times we start an ensemble drama that tries to give us cursory brief descriptions of anywhere from 8-15 characters depending on regulars, returning, and guests, and then they feeel like that box was checked. but all we really learned was that someone was blonde, or wore glasses, or was black and female. And then that character has to carry out some 100 episodes based on that two second description. Here, they took the beginning of a new season, and gave audiences a refresher on Mickey, which I never would have expected, and I really liked that it wasn’t just hair color, or his shirt or something. It talks about his face, the shape, and yes, it says he’s handsome.
So, despite the subjectivity of attractiveness, the Lincoln Lawyer’s audio description team wins this week. The whole episode was great, but that moment put it over the top for me.