TV Shows Watched: The Penguin: S1E5 (MAX) with audio description, Tracker: S2E2 (Paramount Plus), Hysteria: S1E3 (Peacock) with audio description, the Franchise: S1E3 (MAX), and Last Week Tonight: ? (MAX) no audio description
Podcasts: the Official The Penguin Podcast (Interviews/Recaps)
YouTube: Chris Stuckmann (review: Final Destination 5)
Movies: None
After yesterday’s shoutout, I feel somewhat underwhelmed. Partially, I just watched way less stuff. only 4 shows with eligible audio description to even mention.
the penguin- International Digital Center continues to produce a great track, which really has Dakota green making a terrific script, for a perfect narrator in Ren Leach. I really can’t fault it. Even really subtle things, like how when Sophia sits down at the table, and the fur coat just kinda falls off her shoulders, there’s this subtle mention of the dress she’s wearing underneath. It isn’t necessarily what you’d expect from someone trying to make a power grab, but Sophia is just so on the next level that highlighting the fact that she’s got a somewhat attractive dress on for the occasion when so many mob types wear these business suits is such a subtle costuming choice that suggest we’re doing this different from now on, and to mention it casually really helps highlight where that scene is headed, and helps support Sophia as a character. Often, things really are about the subtext, and something as simple as a woman choosing the right dress for the right occasion can send a message.
Tracker- I’ve also really enjoyed what Media Access Group, and I believe narrator Andrew Thatcher, have brought to the table every week for Tracker. season 1 was solid, and this episode does make some really great choices. We are given a plot that suggests “the truth is out there”, so to speak, a great episode for October, and the few things that lean heavily into the alien side of things, involving bright lights, and things that might be otherworldly are left a little open to interpretation anyway, so the audio description has to perfectly balance just exactly what it is we are being shown. You don’t want to over shoot and confirm extraterrestrial presence in an episode that is walking a fine line in not answering that question out right. A fine line was walked very well.
the Franchise- For a show that is about the making of a marvel/DC type film, with a big budget and superheroes, I always feel like there can be more in the description. I don’t mention the show much, because I’ve been trying to figure out where this show lands, because sometimes it has little sparks of good audio description, but it always leaves me at the end feeling like I’m still somehow missing more than I’m getting. I do like the narrator, a new voice for me who seems like Roy Samuelson and Dave Wallace had a baby.
And lastly, Hysteria- This is also IDC I believe, and three episodes in, this is a tough one to judge. Tonally, the show is throwing itself all over the place. It is trying to be so many things, from just simply commentary on how death metal really rose to prominence at this time, and how parents were afraid of it, to actually having real obvious supernatural elements. Julie Bowen is mysteriously thrown back by some unseen force. But, it is also a show about teen’s trying to start a band, and a boy falling for a girl, and less popular kids finally becoming popular, and religious zealotry percolating and waiting to use this stuff to drive home its message, and so many other things. It has some violence and moderate gore, and trying to definitively tell you if this is all the right audio description is honestly had after three episodes. I think this show is a bit all over the place in tone, and until i actually see more of where this show wants to go, it is hard to say if we should be leaning more horror, or more comedy, or where this show even is. I think it is odd how short the episodes for Peacock’s TeaCup are, but Hysteria seems to go on forever. It goes on forever, and has too much going on. I’m loving Bruce Campbell, but I’m scared as to why he’s being labeled as a guest star for a show with only 8 episodes, 3 of which he’s been in. Not having seen where this goes, it seems like a shitty way to telegraph an impending death. No one would consider this role a “guest star” role, and he’d be impossible to write off right now without killing him. So, telling us he’s a guest star is really kinda lame on peacock’s side of things. But, I don’t hate the show. There’s something here, and I’m trying to figure it out. This last episode, i did really enjoy that last bit of description of what the dog threw up, and then how shit starts getting weird (to put it in a non-spoiler context).
