I’ve been doing this long enough now that now whenever a decision is made to release a film without audio description, I feel like it is because they feel like we can watch it without audio description. Because, if the implication was anything other than that, they should and could create a cheaper version for us that filters to give us just the audio described content, so we are paying the appropriate price for the amount of content described. As an example, let’s say you were paying 10 dollars for StreamingPlus, and that made up service actually had 10% of their content audio described. You could opt for the audio description only package for 1 dollar. No one is doing that, so again, the content must be secretly perfectly fine, right? I think the more insidious thing is always when a service bothered to create audio description for a film for theatrical release, which then makes it onto physical media or VOD services, but not their own streaming service. As if it wasn’t bad enough that we were paying for all this undescribed content, you now want me to pay a premium price just to watch this one film that you own because you won’t upload your own audio description to your own service? Like, really, how is this legal?

The GOAT (Amazon)- S1E7?

I think it was the 7th episode. I’m admittedly a little behind, but I think we were down to the final 7 contestants. Near the top, Daniel Tosh lets the contestants know how it works now that the numbers have dwindled. One person is nominated for elimination right then, and the second is revealed based on losing the challenge. However, the chosen person can escape potential elimination by winning the challenge. This puts an obvious target on the men, as they’re outnumbered, and this show has been really hard into gender divisions from the beginning. The second person up, also has a medical issue, and is someone who is nearer to the top of winning this thing. I kinda knew where it was going, but the guy really did try to change his future by revealing his wife was in her third trimester and he was excited to be a father. That didn’t help him in the end. The challenge was about having to eat all this random food, and I was thinking… not me. I would have tapped out thinking what my blood pressure would have looked like. That one guy just ate a stick of butter. RIP.

What I Look For In Audio Description: I felt like after discussing The Traitors and their audio description problems, it was only fair to discuss The GOAT. Sadly, I’m doing Episode 7. So, by now, we should know who these people are, what they look like, and we’re down to a manageable amount of people to follow what they’re doing, and really flesh them out as people more. The eating challenges, reactions, vomiting, food, all that became important. Ratcheting up the drama for both the medical emergency, and the elimination at the end is important, and this show is really silly. So, it has to embrace the humor. It is just like The Traitors in that it relies on contestants from other reality shows to exist.

What It Actually Does: Here, I can’t remember how much description we got about each reality star in the beginning. However, I do feel like it does give names as to who is talking beyond their first appearance, and it does a good job of tracking their reactions, and silly things. The drama around elimination time is always done well. It’s a hard genre to narrate, but this does a pretty decent job of giving good audio description. It isn’t the bare minimum, it isn’t awful, it does exist. I’ve grown to know these characters more because the audio description uses their names a lot more than on the Traitors, so even when their name isn’t being used, I still generally know who is speaking. A great little bonus was the eliminated contestant joked about having a speech prepared, and it was a sight gag, as he pulled out a long sheet of paper, like a scroll, which the audio description pointed out. It often is the attention to detail that lets me know a narrator is really paying attention, because while I can talk about what a show or film needs based on its genre, plot, or themes, I would never have known the scroll joke, because I can’t see.

Final thoughts: While The Traitors is a more fun show, it has worse audio description, and the international versions are non-existent. Amazon, shockingly, is putting better audio description on this, despite they are a service that sees value in TTS. This is not TTS, but it is still interesting that a service that would be willing to pay for that ended up with the better described reality competition show featuring reality stars. Can it be better? Probably. Have I heard it yet? Man, I’m still trying to get American Idol to use audio description after being on the air for 22 seasons. the Voice and America’s Got Talent use audio description. What the fuck is ABC doing with American Idol?