Really, something I haven’t jumped into quite as much individually is casting in audio description. Is someone’s voice right for the project? No narrator is appropriate for all situations. that just isn’t a thing. At some point, that voice is out of its comfort zone, and it starts to sound off putting, or it clashes with the project it is narrating. Some of the best talents do have a broad range, because they can change up their vocal performance. That allows them to sound serious enough for an Oscar bait drama, or light enough for a comedy, and even engaging enough with the right tone for a film aimed at kids. but a person who doesn’t or can’t change the inflection in their voice has a more limited range, and starts to sound like they aren’t serious enough for the project, or perhaps too serious. Casting in audio description is hard, and often feels like the same five or six people are doing everything, or that certain companies prefer only a few narrators. The best companies are the ones that push beyond having a stable of three or four names, and having a roster of talent to work with, so they can individualize each project, therefore complimenting it instead of pulling focus. Without naming a specific project, I will say that I do think about this a lot, and while I have narrators I prefer, every single one of them has some genre I would not want to hear them on. Beyond that, we can talk about responsible casting, making sure that a film has a narrator that matches an intentionally cast project. Not even necessarily a diverse one, but when you see a project that is predominantly one thing, it feels very odd to think that the audio description is something else. It also has started to make me more aware of projects with dubbing, that by taking an international non-white cast, and putting just any voice on those actors also… probably we shouldn’t be doing that. yes, it needs to be clearly understood in English, but there are tons of people who are ethnically diverse and speak clear English. That being said, let’s talk about today’s show.

The Traitors: UK (Peacock)- Season 2, Episode ?

I’m about halfway through the season, and as a new Traitors junkie, I love that Peacock offers not just the American version of the show, but also the UK and Australian, and newly added New Zealand versions. I have seen all seasons of the American and Australian versions, and I’m now about halfway through the second season of the UK version. After that, I can dive into the NZ cast.

What I Look For In Audio Description: Every version of the Traitors is slightly different. Right now, the American version is the only one exclusively casting reality show stars. Their first season had a mix, and the second had reality stars and a few other famous folk. The other countries are still casting unknowns (for the most part). So, as a result, the international versions would actually be more responsible for character introductions. At the beginning, it is always a jumbled mess of thoughts from the contestants, as we slowly get to know a cast of at least 20 new faces. In the international versions, there’s no other show that could have described them to us before, so we are on our own. They also face often really involved challenges that earn money, and spend a lot of time trying to read each other to see who is a traitor. Facial expressions, reactions, everything would help us. From our perspective, we already know who the traitors are, and we are seeing if they can win. So, it is less about the mystery of that, and more about the fun of seeing people be manipulated, and if anyone is actually good at it.

What It Actually Does: Nothing. Peacock doesn’t bother to provide audio description for the international versions, and when I was doing The Small Screen Diaries during the last season of The Traitors US, I consistently ranked it at the bottom of described shows. Even when they do pay for description, it is inadequate. This is obviously frustrating, because it is a low cost series for them, that is clearly just printing money. It just got an Emmy nomination for Best Reality Series here in the US, so the fact that Peacock can’t put a better company on even the American version is problematic, but that they won’t offer audio description for the others is unacceptable. Do these shows air in the UK and Australia without audio description? I don’t mind hearing British audio description, and it might even be better than what we’re getting here. I don’t know who anyone is, and for most of the beginning of the season, I had a hard time even remembering the names of the traitors, let alone the other cast. I rarely fully comprehend a challenge, and elimination sequences are only as interesting as the verbal banter. The episode with the chalice was painful without audio description, waiting to find out what the hell just happened, or was happening. The American version has a bad habit of putting a name to a voice one time, and then never again. So you really have to be on your game, memorizing voices. I wish they would treat it more like a real series, where they keep mentioning who is talking, instead of assuming we have superpowers. And while the American version now benefits from having cast that you *might* know, you’d have to be really familiar with a wide range of shows to know what everyone looks like anyway, and I’m not even sure all those shows they originated from have audio description. The international versions can’t even claim that. I have no idea what anyone looks like, not even just racially or ethnically, but if they don’t mention their size, weight, hair color, glasses, or anything, I have nothing but a voice to go with, and it makes the international versions much harder. Season 2 of the Australian version was interesting because that version got to an ending we never thought could happen, and answered the important question of “what happens when only The Traitors remain?” I won’t spoil it, but there is a very special hell just for them if the people they play with are so bad that multiple traitors end up in the final four. I definitely would have loved audio description for that. For any version, the audio description needs to exist, or be better. Stop rolling in Traitor cash while giving us crappy audio description, or none at all.

Final thoughts: reality TV is hard. Often it is people we’ve never seen before, or now people from previous seasons re-competing on the show, or shows like The Traitors and The GOAT that use reality stars from other shows. These people are not like expecting someone to have passing knowledge of what Tom Cruise or Julia Robert’s looks like. The majority of people watching will not know all of them, and might only know one or two depending on their reality TV history. And for the international versions, they are all basically unknowns.

peacock, you have the most votes and therefore have been eliminated from the competition. Before you leave the audio description essentials, it is time for you to reveal… are you a faithful, or are you a traitor?