My whole streaming experience was weird, since I usually watch American Idol on Monday mornings. For whatever reason, Hulu held back that drop until much later in the day. So, I watched some other stuff instead.

Ripley (Netflix) kicked off the day, when I realized I had finished Three Body Problem, and it stopped at 8 episodes, not 10. Hah. Anyway, this show, and this episode, were a bit slower. This was all about Tom becoming Dickie, and how he does that. It’s not really the most engaging episode, and even with a slightly smaller cast now, it still feels like Dakota Fanning has nothing to do. Andrew Scott is still an interesting Tom Ripley, but I’m also starting to feel like this didn’t really need to exist. It’s not making a good use of the series format. The audio description is fine, focusing mostly on Tom’s facial expressions, but this episode really had nothing going for it. There was one nice moment in audio description, when Fanning’s character is writing a letter, and she mentions a scarf, and we cut to Scott as Tom wearing the scarf, which he just throws to the ground. I was kind of mystified by that character choice, like why wear it at all? but, whatever. I’ll go Middle/Top on this audio description.

Under The Bridge (Hulu) is a new limited series at Hulu, starring Lily Gladstone, Riley Keogh, Archie Punjabi, Anoop Desai, and Matt Craven. The central plot revolves around a teen who goes missing, and her sketchy friends that may have had a hand in her disappearance. I think this was Tansy Alexander, though Hulu started playing something else before I got to that point. One thing I liked about the audio description was that due to certain things, like the presence of a Notorious BIG CD, I was able to put this into the 90’s without someone telling me the date. Also, I did not know Lily Gladstone was muscular. if anything, I assumed the other way after Killers Of The Flower Moon, since her character eats a lot and becomes diabetic. She’s described here multiple times as muscular. What I missed from the description, is what I usually miss from most descriptions, any mention of race or ethnicity. Here, it actually is brought up and hinted at in the divisions in the characters. Clearly, then missing girl and her family are of India/Pakistan regional heritage, as a character in their family expresses frustration at being ignored and feeling like it is because of the racial division. People who look not like them wouldn’t understand. Without knowing the divisions here, you might not pick up on that. You wouldn’t get why Gladstone’s detective is taken aback by this, since she’s Native American, and not white. I don’t know how much this will play into the rest of the series, but the pilot does bring it up, so it should be a focus of the description, which it just isn’t. the pilot is solid, not giving you all of the answers right away. you don’t know what happened to the girl in the first episode. However, it does a poor job of justifying the presence of Riley Keogh as an aspiring writer.She feels far too extraneous, and probably needed more backstory, or be shoved to another episode altogether. I’m sure Gladstone is headed for an Emmy nomination, and I’m always supportive of American Idol alumni like Anoop Desai, but I doubt anyone but Lily gets a nomination here. Middle tier.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (Roku) was originally slated to be on Disney Plus, until they abandoned the project, and Roku snapped it up. I did use this as an opportunity to try out Roku’s mobile app and that was a disappointing experience. I don’t believe this show has audio description, which is sad since the show is based in this dark fantasy world. I’ve heard from people who read the books that this doesn’t follow it at all. It felt a lot like Locke and Key, with a Mom and three kids moving to a creepy old mansion in some small town that they just inherited. Mystery abound. They don’t give the sister any unique character traits. Christian Slater is the biggest star here, playing a villain, but Joy Bryant is worth mentioning. I wish this had audio description and stayed on Disney plus. I have a sneaking feeling this is better than Willow or National treasure, it’s just not a direct adaptation.I’ll keep watching, but you won’t know unless I find out it has audio description.

Tracker (Paramount Plus) found Colter looking into a girl who has been missing for three years. She might have just popped up.Can Colter piece things together? I do like the audio description here, especially for a network program. I’ve been fairly consistent in ranking this high. Top tier.

Renegade Nell (Disney Plus) had our titular hero need to break someone out of jail. It was an interesting episode, and I thought the audio description here was finally strong without over-interpreting expressions. I got a solid idea of what the prison was like. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I needed the description to not go wild with the audio description just one time. So, for episode 5, I’m bumping up to Top Tier.

So, something weird happened to me yesterday. I actually started to finish an episode I had started to watch of 911 (Hulu), and suddenly it had audio description. Now, I’m not at Season 7 yet. I haven’t heard audio description since Season 1. I’ve been slowly trying to catch up on this, with the hopes of being able to enjoy its run on ABC. I’m on Season 5, Episode 5, and that was definitely audio description. I’m not grading it yet, because honestly… I only had like 10 minutes left in the episode. But, expect me to talk about it next time. They might have gone back and added description to 911.

And, I also watched Manhunt (Apple Plus), which I always assumed would end with the death or capture of John Wilkes Booth, but nope. there’s another episode. God help this show. Anyway, audio description is fine. I fear this show won’t be though. Poor Tobias Menzies has been doing nice work all season, and they won’t end on the high mark?