Aimed at grabbing fans of dystopian futures, young adult novels, and fantastical alien worlds, Apple Plus’s newest animated entry follows the story of a young girl named Ava who grows up in a bunker with only an android to raise her, and various tech gadgets as her social companions. when she reaches school age, her training begins, preparing her for reintegration into what is supposed to be a bright new future on an earth that supposedly has fixed itself. What she finds, is that the world is nothing like her training suggested, and now resembles an alien planet, full of humanoids and other creatures. Hoping she is not the last human, Ava sets out to find any remaining humans, holding out hope that she is not alone in this alien landscape. She is joined on her journey by several companions, including some from her time underground, but also various aliens she befriends along the way, The voice cast boasts appearances from standouts like Brad Garrett, Shoreh Agadashloo, and John Ratzenberger, all who are instantly recognizable. Alan Tudyk does a much better job blending into the voice cast.

Wandla makes you wait until the last minute of the season to find out what the shows title significance is, and really leaves the door open for an interesting second season. While animated and seemingly aimed at kids, this show plays a bit older, and is likely to interest more of the middle school crowd on up to adults. It has a tinge of initially being for kids, but adults should enjoy this fantasy world.

It does fall into the same tropes many science fiction shows do, which is having alien races doing things that humans do, despite having no contact with us. They sit at dinner tables, they have a gambling system set at a racetrack, they have stores, and many other things that look like humanity. While there is a lot of creativity in these characters and their development, there’s still limitation in what their customs would be.

The show is well paced, and does a nice job of introducing us to what likely will be a nice little hit for Apple.

What I look For In Audio Description: Since there’s only one human, the bulk of the work is on describing the characters that are alien and have no basis in reality. Not only do we need to have a fully realized vision for all these different beings, but the world around them, the flora and fauna, is all different. Even when she’s inside the vault, she’s using technology far beyond what we have right now. This is a high difficulty script, as the immersive experience is what this is about. We need to feel what she’s feeling, stepping into an unknown world, alone, and everything to her is foreign. It is an extremely visual show, because of how much it leans to science fiction. Shockingly, the character who needs the least amount of description is our lead, who most audience members will project themselves upon her anyway, imagining what they would do in that situation. the fantasy here is so high, that anything Ava could possibly look like or wear seems less interesting than the things or creatures she interacts with.

What it Does: For the most part, it hits right in the middle. It’s not as immersive as you may want, feeling like you’ve entered this alien world along with Ava, but the description has a lot it needs to cover. Depending on how long any given creature, character, or landscape is present will depend on how much we learn about it. This is a show where you almost have to keep exploring and evolving the description of these characters as the episodes go on, because some are met in action heavy sequences, and our description of the character is shortened as a result. There was one instance in the second episode after Ava leaves her bunker that she interacts with an eventual ally. At this point, we don’t know who or what he is or will be, but the audio description team names him out right. This becomes problematic, as there’s a language barrier, and a running joke where he says something to Ava, and she mistakes that for his name, but we’ve already been told what his name was. this is the kind of really basic stuff I don’t usually cover in the ‘what I look for” section, because it just is common sense. Don’t ruin an entrance. I’m fine with characters being named as early as possible, as it substitutes for facial recognition. This introduction resolves itself by the end of the episode, so if we had just waited a few minutes, her joke would have worked. But, the show in general doesn’t dumb down its audio description, and when people are in peril, they are in peril.

Final Thoughts: I was very pleasantly surprised by this show in general, and I look forward to the second season. This isn’t technically adult animation, but it would appeal to adults who watch a lot of genre style shows. The audio description is a notch below exceptional, and my best advice for season two is to remember that you are describing a world where nothing actually exists. This means the depth of description has no limit, and if you have to keep describing more detail of characters we’ve met as we go along, that’s fine. But, whether or not a blind audience will enjoy and follow this program is based nearly entirely on whether they feel immersed in this world. A solid start for this Apple Plus show, and I will continue watching. Will you?

Final Grade: B+