Happy New Year! We can celebrate now that Hulu has added audio description to Night Bitch. Thanks Hulu for only making it a few days late, instead of weeks or months. It really is the little things in life.
TV Shows Watched: Shrinking: S2E12 (Apple Plus) with audio description, La palma: S1E1 (Netflix) with audio description, Secret Level: S1E3 (Amazon) with audio description, Bookie: S2E2 (MAX) with audio description, Virgin River: S6E3 (Netflix) with audio description, The Sticky: S1E1 (Amazon) NO AUDIO DESCRIPTION, A Man On The Inside: S1E? (Netflix) with audio description, Happy’s Place: S1E? (Peacock) with audio description, and some of the Dick Clark’s Rockin New Years Eve. I should have flipped on the audio description, but when I turned to it… it was an artist I didn’t want to listen to… so i turned it off. LOL. Sorry. I forgot I also critique audio description.
Movies Watched: Small Things like These (Apple Store) with audio description, Night Bitch (Hulu) with audio description, Bumblebee (Paramount Plus) with audio description, and Widow Clío (Netflix) no audio description
Best Episode: Shrinking- Oh thank God. Those final moments. I was like… are they really going to…. And then I was “I’m not crying, you’re crying.”
Runner Up: Bookie- A pretty funny episode that sent the guys to recover a debt from a drug lord, with another cameo by Charlie Sheen.
Best Performance: Harrison Ford- Like. Not even close. He couldn’t get an Emmy nomination for last season, and if this doesn’t change that, nothing will. Honestly, Jessica Williams looked like she was about to have a big moment, but her storyline went elsewhere. I feel bad for not ever having her here, and I really thought while watching the episode, that she was going to steal the episode. But Ford did. They gave her a happier ending.
Runner Up: Sebastian Maniscalco (Bookie)- And for something completely different, I thought he was hilarious this week on bookie. So, one performance hit me in the feels, then another made me laugh.
Best Audio Description: A Man On The Inside- It becomes tough when you remove action/science fiction from your watchlist, and you have to analyze half hour comedies. Ultimately, there were a lot of purely visual moments that were included, that weren’t necessarily integral to the story, but really supported the choices being made by actors, and fleshed out this episode the best. For example, it tracks Didi’s coffe cup, and there wasn’t any major significance to doing so, or to doing so diligently. Yes, there’s a slight payoff, but even one mention would have made the payoff make sense. It really followed that motion. there was also a really lovely interaction toward the end when one of the characters, who is battling cancer, gives up smoking to hang around a bit longer. It found the right non verbal beats.
Runner up: Shrinking- Here, the difficulty level was high. There were a lot of people at that table for Thanksgiving. It was very crowded, and I felt like we got a lot. There was the mention of the Basket, when the phone went unanswered. And in the scene where we see Louis in the subway, and it cuts back and forth, that was really well done. I did feel like there were people at that table I did not know, or never received acknowledgement. Liz has a bunch of kids, who apparently have girlfriends/spouses, and when one of them spoke… I was like..who? But, otherwise, it did have a lot happening in a brief span of time, and a lot of dialog to work around.
Best Moment Of Audio Description: Shrinking- Breaking out a chunk of what I just said, the part of the Thanksgiving scene, where we flash between Louis and the rest of the cast was really well done. I was on pins and needles.
Runner Up: A Man On The Inside: The coffee cup.
And I hate to go negative, but…
Worst Episode: Happy’s Place- I just can’t quit Reba, even though with each episode I keep telling myself I will. The show isn’t funny. She has bad writers.
Runner Up: La Palma- This show did nothing for me. Like, dos it get better? The first episode felt like the first 10 minutes of a better disaster movie, except this doesn’t have the budget and went straight to Tubi. But it’s on Netflix. 100 Years Of Solitude was hard to follow without audio description, but I can objectively tell that was a better series.
Runner Up: A Man on The Inside- this episode largely did not work on me. We spent a lot of time with Didi. All of a sudden. I’m hoping there is a payoff to that. Also, this episode addresses that Danson has no natural chemistry with his daughter, and the awkwardness of that, but also, it just made the whole episode that much more awkward. This episode could have been really great, as it dealt finally with death in this scenario, but it did it in such an odd way.
Runner up: Secret Level- Was Arnold handed the script the day before? Why does it sound like he’s doing a cold read? I recognized his voice, and it made me go… oh, what a great get! Arnold Schwarzenegger doing a voice performance. Why doesn’t he do this more? But the poor direction of the series answered that for me.
Runner Up: The Sticky- And we haven’t even gotten to the factt that Amazon just dropped a new show without audio description. What in the holy fuck? When did Amazon become unreliable with english originals? This show stars Margo Martindale and Jamie Lee Curtis. Like, WTF.
Virgin River is never great. But, I think everyone who watched Virgin River knows why it is never at the bottom or the top. It is a guilty pleasure. it will live there. So, yeah, that means I only actually liked two episodes. What a weird day.
Worst performances: As noted, the lack of chemistry between father and daughter in A Man on The Inside was really felt more than intended this episode, Arnold is awful in secret Level, and I don’t know what to do with la Palma. So, pick one.
Worst Audio Description: The Sticky- Still the absence of audio description from Amazon on an English language series is just beyond me. Some of the other shows don’t have the best mixing happening, but The Sticky wins this category in an easy decision. But, if I’m talking about audio description, La Palma sounds like it isn’t mixed or recorded at the highest level.
