TV Shows Watched: Building The Band: S1E9 (Netflix) with audio description, Stick: S1E9 (Apple plus) with audio description, Mindhunter: S1E5 (Netflix) with audio description, Washington Black: S1E2 (Hulu) with audio description, Dexter: S5E8 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, Red Eye: S1E1 (Hulu) no audio description, Breaking Bad: S2E? (Netflix) with audio description

Building The Band- Seems like the right final three. Liam is my favorite judge, as he actually feels like he wants to give real feedback, and not just “reality show judge” babble that Nicole is so used to giving, after spending years telling every mediocre celebrity they are a star on The Masked Singer. The audio description here is surprisingly getting quite a bit of coverage for the format. We’re getting some choreo, costumes, and staging with the performances. Shows like this remind me there’s no real reason American Idol can’t have audio description other than they hate blind people. That must be the only reason. Other reality shows have it figured out, and even do it live.

Stick- We certainly are Tee’d up for a nice finale. Will the finale make us feel warm and fuzzy, or leave us in a ball sobbing in the corner? For fans of Stick, Marc Maron has a stand up special dropping this week on HBO MAX, so look for that.

Mindhunter- An episode that finished one case, while also giving Anna Torv’s third wheel academic some development of her own, to help her feel less like a supporting character, and more fully realized like the two male leads. Makes sense, since she now works at Quantico. I’m whelmed by this AD track. Not over, not under, just whelmed. We must be able to be whelmed if we can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed.

Washington Black- The historical drama continues across two timelines. By far the more interesting one right now is the childhood timeline, as we spend most of that this episode with pirates. I like this audio description track. It does nice work. the descriptions of the pirates, the drawings wash does, and some other little things help shape the series.

Dexter- Well, Lumen is still here, and Dexter figures out who said “tick tock” to her.

Red Eye- A British thriller starring Richard Armitage as a guy being taken back to China to face murder charges for something he didn’t do. It isn’t that interesting, and Hulu didn’t bother getting the audio description it probably had when it ran in the UK with commercials. This has some of the weirdest commercial breaks, which I can tell, because I run no ads.

Breaking Bad- I was a bit confused, as I thought Walt Jr’s nickname is Slim, but then when he comes down for the driving test, the audio description starts calling him something else. It’s also one of those names I didn’t write down, because I was convinced I could remember it, but I just remember it was not Slim. I’m assuming the name change in the AD track is for a reason, since Breaking Bad got audio description late, the writers of the track would have known the direction the show would take. So, I’m trusting whatever he’s being called now, since we made the switch, is correct and purposeful. I did spend an entire season listening to a narrator mispronounce a characters name on walking Dead Dead City, but that wasn’t produced by DVW.