It’s funny how that last episode of Silo that I reviewed yesterday felt so much like a Season Finale, and so many streaming shows cap at 8, I just thought that was the finale. Apparently not. Hah. Damn, that will be hard to top. In other TV news, I’m still supporting the actors and writers for striking to not be replaced by AI. If they don’t do it now, they won’t be working later anyway. Although, the studios current proposal on scanning background talent to use their likeness in perpetuity really makes me wonder who would go be a background talent after knowing that? Who is so anxious so sign away their image for the rest of their lives for the day rate on one film? Make A Wish kids?

8) Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Hulu)

English Audio Description?: No

Status: Ended

Remember the first season of Buffy, where she fought a lot of things that weren’t vampires? This monster of the week just might be a ventriloquist dummy. Or, that dummy might actually be a demon hunter. I promise you, this show starts to make sense and gets really good. Just… not in this episode.

Episode Grade: C+

7) American Born Chinese (Disney Plus)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Status: not Yet Renewed

Since this show feels so much like two very different shows struggling to be one, I don’t know if the team behind the show is trying to say something when they include references to a sitcom and how that might tie in. Is this about to become a show with two shows? I really do want two different shows. We do not have enough time to explore Jin and his life, and also the mystery of the scroll. And certainly this show has too big of a cast to let any of them have meaningful development. Lots of great ideas, but it’s still, five episodes in, a little messy.

Episode Grade: B-

6) The Wonder Years (Hulu)

English Audio Description? Yes

Status: Summer Burnoffs Are Never A Good Sign

Kim thought she could sleep in. She thought wrong, and is forced to enroll in college math, since she finished her high school requirement. I keep seeing all these shows from various time periods where someone as a student had a ‘free period”. Where did these people live? I had to be in school no matter what. Even classes close to a “free period”, were still classes. i could be a teaching assistant for a period, or something like Yearbook. But, the idea that I could have just skipped first period because I had satisfied the credits didn’t exist. They would just make you take an AP course or something, or dual enroll. Fantasy.

Episode Grade: B+

5) Platonic (Apple plus)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Aside from Rogen walking into a sliding glass door, this was mostly a serious episode about discovering that Will was too old to be in anything long term with Peyton, after she was hired as a babysitter for Sylvia and after he threw her a birthday party. He still comes off as the bad guy, because he refuses to listen to Sylvia and breaks up on Peyton’s birthday. She doesn’t care, but still. A weird episode, but points for slowly turning Sylvia’s child into a creeper.

Episode Grade: B+

4) I Am A Virgo (Amazon)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Status: Not Yet Renewed

Oh, I had no idea this was a Boots Riley show I’m intrigued now. The second episode grew on me, even if Cootie doesn’t have any kind of sense to know that the photo shoot he was hired for was deeply inappropriate.

Episode Grade: A-

3) Mad Men (?)

English Audio Description?: No?

I’m still trying to figure out how I lost audio description from Season 1 to Season 2. But, in episode 2, there’s a plane crash, and it shakes things up at the agency in more ways than one. I’m pretty sure Pete isn’t human. I want to start a petition for AMC to go back and write off his character. I really don’t think anyone would care.

Episode Grade: A-

2) Better Call Saul (Netflix)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Status: Final Season

I feel like Breaking Bad should be number one. This episode probably resonated with all the Breaking Bad fans, as Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad finally merge. But, I actually couldn’t get into Breaking Bad. i did try it first, and didn’t finish the series, but i do love Saul. And for me, even though there’s a phone call where we see Saul talking to Kim, we don’t see Kim. And these last episodes with Kim are killing me. I want to be able to be wrapped up in the final moments, but without Kim there, it just doesn’t feel right. Something is missing to me, coming as a Saul fan, not a Breaking Bad fan.

Episode Grade: A-

1) The Witcher (Netflix)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Status: Renewed

I know that I’m starting over at Season 1, but it still bears praising that the audio description in this show is stunning. This is where our Witcher heads off to fight something that’s been killing others, and when we get a description of this creature, as malformed and cursed as it is, with a dangling umbilical cord, I have to say, I felt like I could ahve drawn her from that description. Not only was the episode great, almost on a stand alone episode, like a movie or something, but the description was fantastic.

Episode Grade: A