first, please take some time to check me out on the latest episode of Access Fuckery, a disability centric podcast hosted by Liz Gutman. I had a great time discussing audio description, accessibility, and our new attempt at a Blind Film Critics Society with Alex Howard and lee Pugsley. you can catch this podcast wherever you cast your pods. Now, onto the show!

TV Shows watched: the Waterfront: S1E3 (Netflix) with audio description, Iron Heart: S1E2 (Disney Plus) with audio description, overcompensating: S1E8 (Amazon) with audio description, Countdown: S1E1 (Amazon) with audio description, America’s Got Talent: Most Recent (Peacock) with audio description, The Rehearsal: S1E5 (MAX) with audio description, Breaking Bad: S1E5 (Netflix) with audio description, Yellowstone: S5E12 (Peacock) with audio description, The Bear: S4E1 (Hulu) with audio description

Best Episode: overcompensating, Runner Up: Breaking Bad

Best Audio Description: The Bear, Runner Up: Iron Heart and OverCompensating

Best Performance: Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Runner Up: Jeremy Alyn White (the Bear)

Best Moment of Audio description: Morning Routine (The bear), Runner Up: Everyone At The Party (Overcompensating)

The Waterfront- while it didn’t make any list above, it was just a tough day. I actually liked everything about it, and this show is growing on me. It certainly loves to end on big cliffhangers, but Kevin Williamson is navigating this cast in a fairly interesting path so far. I love that I decided to start watching Mindhunter the same time as the Waterfront, so I’m getting this double dose of holt Maccallany, who is solid here. this episode had a beginning that revealed if a certain character was burned alive or not, and ended with the assumption that a different character bit the dust. the episode has solid audio description, I’m just not sure it beat out some of the others. I have no problems.

Iron Heart- I don’t like Alden Eherenreich as an actor, and I don’t even care to make sure I spelled his name correctly. he bores me terribly all the time. he’s been added here, and given the most fake name ever. joe mcGuillicuddy. Otherwise, this episode falls into a predictable second episode place, but has so much untapped potential. what RiRi did with Natalie, is heartbreakingly discovered by RiRi’s mom, who then asks if she can replicate that tech and make Gary. Of course she could, and she should. Heroes are born not out of the random new people along the way, but their friends and family. The tragic backstories, and how they rose up. Having AI versions of the two people we lost to gun violence would make the show different, by also keeping it similar. And, it would add a lot of character depth to riRi’s mom, who is largely underdeveloped. This could be the folly of the series, the unwillingness to go down this route. No man is an island. They all have their people, and right now RiRi has only her Mom, and a bunch of Wakandans she just met. Expanding with holograms isn’t the worst idea.

Overcompensating- things continue to progress, and somehow Peter gets to fail upwards, as he is rewarded simply for getting people to talk about the school.No press is bad press. However, a wave of betrayals leaves our friend group in a messy state at the end. What I loved about this was the party, which felt like a reward for watching the series with attentiveness. The party featured so many side characters who popped up in random moments over the previous episodes, and the description tracked them doing things in the party, like a certain cousin you probably forgot from the beginning of the season.

Countdown- What a promising mess this is. I came so close to picking the audio description, but I had a lot of great audio description. This feels so heavy, like shitty buffet food.They have so much front loaded in terms of character introductions, with a team being assembled, that you think the balance is going to be more even, but it still seems to have leads and minor characters, which made the Avengers assemble element feel like it was too much, and should have been spread out. Arguably, iron Heart has a similar problem in Episode 2, but at least it didn’t do it in the pilot. You’re never guaranteed another episode, and countdown has a promising concept, but poor execution in the pilot. Could it get better? Absolutely. but this pilot is a mess.

America’s Got Talent- there were more singers in this episode, which had a little less fantastic audio description, which is why it didn’t make the cut this time. no real problems, just more singers, including Tom Sandoval, who I would have cut. Stop chasing fame.

The rehearsal- I was disappointed that this episode wasn’t him testifying in front of actual congress, but more of a “what if” situation. i so wanted to see actual congressmen and women having to dialogue with Nathan over airplane safety.

Breaking Bad- A heartfelt episode with an intervention for Walt. I’m not going to praise these guys for every single episode, but this one is certainly a standout for Bryan Cranston, who was devastating. “I’ll do it for you.”

Yellowstone- I didn’t mind this episode as much, and then Casey became some weird black ops stalker. still, Kelly Reilly felt a bit more like herself, and even Wes Bentley started to put more entitlement back into Jamie. Slowly, they found what made them interesting to begin with, which had been strongly lacking for the last three episodes. Also, why is Kevin Costner still listed in the opening credits? Most shows remove actors after their character has been killed off. The Walking Dead famously even removed Steven Yuen for a hot second as part of payoff to a fake out death before Glen’s actual exit. If costner’s name is on there because he’s a whiny baby, I’d like to know. Hell, I think even Brian Cox was taken out of the Succession credits.

The Bear- So, the restaurant didn’t get a good review. Now what? Roy Samuelson lucks out again with another prestige show, and the sequence near the beginning that shows a character’s morning routine was done perfectly. Of course, there’s no dialogue, so it was all description, because who walks around their house talking to themselves? I’m not sure where we are headed this season, or how long the Bear can hold on to being a critical darling, but the premiere does what it needs to by establishing a new path based on the conclusion of the previous season. It is obvious that they are up against a deadline for that Michelin star, and if they can’t get it, the Bear closes. This cast is getting more and more in demand, and it will be hard to run for much longer. Hulu hasn’t said this is the end, so I’m guessing they plan at least one more, but with Jeremy Alyn White and Ayo Edebiri both with Oscar potential this year, i don’t know if they can do more than one more season unless we start having breaks like Stranger Things.