The Small Screen Diaries: 06/07/24

Rumors are swirling around 911: Lone Star that fOX is looking to make next season its last, as the actress who plays Grace has departed ahead of Season 5. The rest of their shows that aren’t animated have awful ratings, so I don’t understand this.

I watched the newest episode of The Big Cigar (Apple Plus) where Huey learned the death of his father, another character also dies, the film they are making dies, just a lot of death. Not my favorite limited that Apple has put out this year, but I stand by the excellent work being done by Andre Holland, especially in this week’s episode.

Jurassic World Chaos Theory (Netflix) is so dark. I love it. Every time they find something of Brooklyn’s it is heartbreaking. The team that writes for the animated Jurassic shows need to be the team that writes the next live action film. The last two live action Jurassic World films were messy, and these shows are far better than they need to be or we deserve.

Outer Range (Amazon) had a really strong 4th episode that focused on Joy, being stuck in the past, and her interactions with a young Royal. The cliffhanger ending on this episode did kinda make my jaw drop a bit. I can’t wait to see how that plays out. I love this show, the excellent audio description by Roy Samuelson is one of the best I’m hearing currently, and Amazon needs to order a third season right now.

I’m still catching up on We Are Lady Parts (Peacock), from Season 1, and like I said last week, even though this isn’t my favorite show to watch right now, I love how it has its own voice. It is so hard to feel fresh these days, but this feels like a perspective we’ve never seen before, and I love that. The audio description is also pretty good so far.

Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show (MAX) had Jerrod have a sit down with his father and have a real talk about how his dad was running around, and his dad really didn’t want to have that conversation on camera. This will be the episode that gets this show its nomination. This should be the FYC episode.

I also took a look at the new Hulu series Queenie which is something I feel like I have seen before, unlike We Are Lady parts. The pilot didn’t grab me at all, I’m not really sure what the show is about, but there were parts that worked. The opening is hilarious, as she has inner thoughts while waiting for her doctors to respond to her, and she has a biting response to her grandmother in law, but parts of this just fell flat, and didn’t work for me. The audio description is at least average. I didn’t have any problems, but I was so focused on trying to figure out if this show had a plot that I wasn’t paying attention to nuance. I promise to have more thoughts in a later episode of this show.

I also noticed Paramount Plus has a show called Transformers: Earthspark, and the second season just dropped. I decided to check it out, and my god, the damn thing has audio description. Look at that! A win for children’s television. I’m enjoying the first episode, even if it does seem like we are really stretching this franchise at this point. It certainly isn’t a reboot, and seems to deal more with Transformer/Human hybrids.

I also watched another episode of Hacks (MAX), which is definitely going to be a serious Emmy contender this year. It is probably the one show that will be giving The Bear a run for its money. I love hearing this narrator now that I’ve heard them on two other projects where they weren’t credited.

And I also watched an old episode of The Golden Girls (Hulu) which had audio description. AND, while it did not have audio description nor could I understand it, I paid my respects by watching the farewell to Pat Sajak. 41 years. He’s literally been hosting that show my entire life, so it only felt appropriate, and he had a really nice and classy final statement on the way out the door.

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