TV Shows Watched: Cobra Kai: S6E10 (Netflix) with audio description, No Good Deed: S1E3 (Netflix) with audio description, What We Do In The Shadows: S6E10 (Hulu) With Audio Description, La Macquina: S1E3 (Hulu) with audio description, Get Millie Black: S1E4 (MAX) with audio description, Call Me Ted: S1E5 (MAX) with audio description, Abbott Elementary: S4E8 (Hulu) with audio description, and A Man On The Inside: S1E3 (Netflix) with audio description.
Podcasts/Youtube: Mostly limited to critics for films without audio description, but I did watch the Oscar Expert break down the Oscar Shortlists. Some pretty sad snubs. Very odd choices. I 100% disagree with Wicked being eligible for Best Original Score, based on previous rulings, and one that made Dune: Part II ineligible this year. The rule is if too much non-original work interferes with the original score, the understanding of what is original, then it is ineligible. It is a bullshit definition, used to disqualify Dune, but not something like Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny, or any Star Wars sequel. Certainly, Wicked should have been. Fucking egregious.
Movies Watched: Anorah (screener) No Audio Description (though I’m in touch with Neon, and hope to get audio description for my DVD’s that lacked it), A complete Unknown (screener) no audio description, Bird (screener) no audio description, In The Summers (screener) no audio description, Black Dog (screener) no audio description
Best Episode Watched Yesterday: Cobra Kai- I gotta hand it to the really entertaining Part B finale for Cobra Kai. They had choices to make at the end there, and they could have gone for the emotional gut punch, but instead it fell upon someone no one cared about.
Runner Up: Abbott Elementary- This could have gone one of five ways. I liked the twist at the end, and because you thought this episode was headed one direction, it was that little surprise that put this episode over potential runner up’s like La Macquena, What we Do In The Shadows, and A Man on The Inside.
Best Performance: Lisa Ann Walters (Abbott Elementary)- A really thought she stole the show, with her performance evolving, and the cast perfectly reacting to her. She’s always tough, but this episode really supported her in an episode that really started off as being Janeane being excited for her first Christmas Eve as a couple.
Runner Up: Harvey Guillén (What We Do In The Shadows)- Seeing the parallels finally, being asked to pay his dues one more time was too much for Guillermo. A nice showcase of his talent, and his ensemble did a great job supporting him in a Guillermo centric episode.
Special Performance Award: The Cast Of Cobra Kai- those stunts though. Also, shoutout to the stunt coordinator. A very different kind of performance, but… damn.
Best Audio Description- cobra Kai- Sorry, it isn’t even close. Cobra Kai (spoilers) devolves into chaos, and the last 5-10 minutes is just one really long crowd fight with the whole cast. A masterful work tracking them all. Also, there’s another thing that Crease brings into play that had to be tracked as well. Absolutely brilliant work.
Runner Up: No Good Deed- I mean, I will go ahead and recognize a runner-up, just to celebrate the work of audio description, and No Good Deed felt like it probably had the most heavy lifting, as it is also slowly unpacking a mystery. We’re getting these little clues along the way. What happened? We don’t know yet, but there are bread crumbs.
Best Single Moment Of Audio Description: Cobra Kai- That fight sequence. It is the biggest thing they’ve done since the brawl inside Daniel’s house, and that was impressive. This has more fighters, and even the adults, plus they have to track a specific object of consequence the whole fight. Again, this is a no contest victory today.
Runner Up: What We Do In The Shadows- After tackling this show last week, it did go back to leaning in on sight gags. There’s one where Nandor rips a sign out of the ground and flings it into the sky, where it flies into the upper floors of a building, and you can quietly hear screaming in the background. I’m really glad they went with that visual gag, especially since last week that is what was missing.
Worst Episode Watched: La Macquena- Like, this series is really good, but his mother is WAY too concerned with his son’s sperm, and we spent WAY too much time on it. the episode started to course correct when diving into CTE. But it was so awkward to sit in this extended sequence where this mother is talking about her son’s sperm, and even his testicles. Like, culturally, I know things are different, but I’m hoping that even for the Spanish speaking viewers, people think she’s a bit much. That’s the only reason I picked this episode.
Worst Performance: Ted Turner (Call Me Ted)- Again, this guy needs emotional range. He’ll talk about these emotionally devastating moments with zero change in his voice, and it is so hard to believe he ever had any emotion. At this point, I’m convinced the stronger route would have been to not have Ted participate at all, and instead have someone narrate his life.
Worst Audio Description: Again, no films I watched had audio description. So, that becomes the easy choice. In terms of the series, that means Abbott Elementary’s typically weak audio description gets a reprise.
