TV News: Really, shocking no one, NCIS Origins has been picked up for a full season, joining George and Mandy, and Matlock (which due to its structuring could only get a second season renewal, not an order of more episodes).
TV Shows Watched: You Would Do it Too: S1E3 (Apple plus) with audio description, Jurassic World: Chaos Theory: S2E4 (Netflix) with audio description, The Last Nights On Tremore Beach: S1E4 (Netflix) with audio description, Fight Night: S1E1 (Peacock) finally with audio description, Monsters At Work: S2E1 (Disney plus) no audio description, and The Masked Singer: S12E6 (Hulu) no audio description.
Podcasts: none. though, I will be listening to the new episode of The Dark Room soon enough. If you aren’t subscribed to Alex and lee’s podcast, you’ll miss their special guests, who worked on creating the audio description for The Mandalorian!
YouTube: The Awards Contender (Top 10 Times A Woman Won In A Category Typically DOminated By Men)
Movies Watched: Memoir Of A Snail (Screener) No Audio Description (currently in theatres, by the way, without audio description), and Endurance (Disney Plus) with audio description
We can really get into most of this.Episode 4 of Tremore Beach was a difficult watch, certainly. these episodes all push feature length, so sometimes instead of being able to just focus on one profound theme, they do include more in an episode than feels like is typical. For example, this episode is a really hard watch, as the center plot is gang rape, and the victim going through her memories of this to her new partner. This includes a lot of flashbacks, but they also feel the need to rope in other story elements, like how our main protagonist’s father comes to visit, or how this little boy is still having these night terrors or sleepwalking. earlier this year, I was pretty honest about how I felt that Ryan Murphy would give a representation of a Menéndez brother an entire episode to talk about their sexual assault, while also presenting them as liars. It felt like stealing someone else’s truth, and making the audience sit through this graphic depiction being acted out as if everything is gospel, but all of it could be, and probably is, bullshit. Here, this obviously is not a true story, but it is still handled in a much more honest way, and the weight it is given is never from a perspective other than complete trust in the validity of her story. I think what is interesting here, is that the episode shows the rape scenes, which means they got audio described. So, let’s get into that.
Whether you read me or watch my YouTube, you know I dislike “thrusting”, because I’ve heard it more times than any other word since losing my vision. I’m not sure how many times I heard it before, but it seems to be the de facto way for many audio description writers to describe a sex scene. there’s nothing less sexy right now in audio description than thrusting. And that’s the point. This isn’t sex, it is rape. It isn’t sexy, it is a crime, it is violent, and it has scarred this victim clearly for life. So, by taking this rather cold and methodical descriptive term, and placing it in here, I actually thought this is where it should be. It has become so overused, that if you are trying to enhance a love making scene, you really have to do more. but, here, thrusting feels violent. it has the sense that instead of taking an action with care and concern, there’s a lack thereof, much like a soldier swinging a sword into an enemy. Here, thrusting works.
Also, if you’ve been waiting for Peacock’s Fight Night to gain audio description, i casually checked, and there it was. A very stacked cast, and Deluxe made an audio description track worth the wait. could you imagine having to wait this long for TTS? Thank God, we ended up with something good. I’m not 100% sold on the show, because despite the cast doing some really strong work, Dexter Darden’s take on Ali is just weak. I’m going to assume this is one of those cases where someone looks uncannily like the person they are playing, so someone gave them a pass. He’s in too much of the first episode for me to fully embrace the show, but if they can push him aside, there’s probably an interesting drama here with some much better actors. While the cast is predominantly black, and not every single person is described as such, I really enjoyed some of the costume description. This is a period piece, which makes me feel old, but it is. So, there’s a very specific look and style for the time that comes out in the description.
And lastly, I spent some time wondering what happened to monsters At Work, to find out that it did get a second season, which quietly was shifted to linear TV, and then later slid back on Disney plus. This didn’t feel like Season 1 at all. I’m pretty sure the voice cast abandoned it, and whatever oversight Pixar had is gone. Still, it is sad to see that Disney won’t put audio description on this, just like they dropped the ball on their new Ariel Jr, or the animated Zombies, or the revival of Wizards Of Waverly Place. Netflix puts audio description on all its American/English content, so the fact that Disney has so many branded shows without audio description is heavily discouraging. there’s always been some excuse with bluey, which hails from Australia, but Monsters Inc, Ariel, Zombies, and Waverly Place are all Disney brands. Established Disney brands, and all shows created this year, or new episodes for this year. In 2024, to see Disney missing the mark this many times is really concerning.