Let’s go ahead and get the big title out of the way first. Avatar The Last Airbender (Netflix) is finally out, and I even conferred with a friend, a sighted one, who is obsessed with the original series. he loves the new show, and hated the movie. I think his direct quote was “The first 15 seconds of this show are better than that 3 hour movie”, and went on to tell me all about the actors, and how close they look and act like their cartoon counterparts. as a late stage fan, who technically has seen all Airbender related items, I was impressed they stuck the landing. It didn’t quite blow me away. I did want more from the audio description in terms of character description, since a big point of contention for fans of the live action movie was the casting. I feel like this is going for a neutral feel on ethnicity, and making it so both everyone is represented, and no one at the same time. This likely was not a choice made by the AD company, but rather through a decision at Netflix. I know this was the original case with Bridgerton, and the whole point of that show has been the intentionality in casting. Really, time will tell if Netflix made the right call here or not. I’m thinking not. There’s a cheapness to the sound quality I got today. I wanted a cinematic feel, suggesting Netflix had invested money on a major franchise to make it work, but that isn’t the case. The sound quality is poor, and I don’t know if that is a broad problem with the show, or the mixing with the AD. I’m guessing show, as other shows on Netflix like Stranger Things have incredibly terrific sound designs and audio description woven perfectly. I’m sticking with this.

And I also started the second season of Tokyo Vice (MAX), which to be fair does start with one hell of a recap, which was great because I had all but forgotten Season 1. I’m still not sure I remember the first season, and I’m not sure how much Season 2 is connected. The audio description here is fine, to be honest I spent most of the episode trying to figure out where the hell we were in terms of the story, so I don’t want to be overly critical out of the gate. My confusion stems from this show just not being that memorable.

And then, I tackled the great ABC debate. I watched last week’s episodes of The Good Doctor, Will Trent, and Abbott Elementary, which are all available on Hulu as well. Ever since the season premiere of Abbott rocked our world with just the dullest description possible, the other shows have been heavily scrutinized. With Will Trent, it happens to be the same woman doing Not Dead Yet. Vi-Tech seems to be better with dramas. I don’t think Will Trent ever had truly exceptional audio description, a comment I made about The Connors in this great ABC debate. I can’t remember who the original narrator was, but I do like this narrator, and I’m glad she has something this season that doesn’t fall so short of the previous season. I would say the narration on Will Trent is serviceable.

For the Good Doctor, aside from me finding the replacement for last season’s Tristan Snyder woefully lacking in emotional depth, is narrating (again) serviceable audio description. If it wasn’t for the change in narrator, I’m not that sure I would have noticed a company change. the problem here, is that no one really quality checks at this new company. That’s probably how they save money, is they cut out the QC. Anyone would have noticed that the narrator pronounces one of the characters names like they’re a Star Wars princess, which is not how her name is pronounced in the show. It should be Lee-uh not Lay-uh. Sorry for the cheap phonetics on that. But, if the narrator had ever seen an episode, or was human, they might have caught that. It’s something I’m sure Tristan Snyder wouldn’t have stumbled on. that’s the difference in quality, little things like that that show me that the team behind the audio description aren’t interested in providing quality audio description, but rather just cheap basic audio description. in a world though where the overwhelming majority of content has NO audio description, having something is still something. But this narrator falls so short, I’m not even sure he’s human. Is this AI?

I think it’s the same question I have about Abbott Elementary, which sounds like a more robotic version of the narrator on the Good Doctor. Abbott Elementary still unquestionably has the worst audio description of any show I’ve seen on ABC this season. That’s following The Good Doctor, The Rookie, Will Trent, The Connors, and Not Dead yet, as well as American Idol which is still not being described despite being so old children of Idol contestants from seasons past are now auditioning.

Add to this the corners Disney is cutting in Disney Plus shows like Percy Jackson and Choir, as well as not describing any of their Oscar nominated documentaries, and Hulu trying to gaslight me into All of Us Strangers not having an audio description track it had in theatres, where I saw and heard it. I’m starting to get a little worried for the House Of Mouse. Suddenly, they seem to not be as concerned with the quality of the accessibility or consistency.