I’ve had enough. Enough is enough. Advocating for audio description is more than just me bitching at Hollywood corporations for not providing any audio description, it also is me turning the floodlight back on companies who are cashing checks off my disability. So, we’re going to take a look at Twisted Metal: S2E3. It’s a cold watch. I haven’t yet watched the episode, but the last episode, and the overall general content that seems to get pushed out by this company, has gotten us here.

We open with title cards. Peacock, Sony, etc. No notes.

So a white man wearing a backwards baseball cap walking through an overgrown graveyard at night… that is good audio description.

There’s some dialogue, and the next bit of audio description is “another man digs up a grave”. Fine. So the other guy says wait a minute… why is there no casket. And some other voice comes out of nowhere with something about there being no body to bury, and we hear some of those typical horror sounds, like something is being squished. Then, some punching. One of the two guys is clearly in distress, in a panic attack of some kind, for some reason. Then finally the audio description cuts back with Mr Grimm looks down at the dead gravedigger. Don’t you just hate when people just die… randomly… and the reasons are unknown… because we just had some sound effects with no context? Fucking love it. Moving on. Then we hear some sound effects that are supported by “wisps of blue lights move from the gravedigger to Mr Grimm’s face”. So the other one, maybe the one with the hat. who knows. The hat was never important I guess. “Grimm inhales the light. he inhales deeply.” I love that we don’t know how the first gravedigger died, but we know Mr Grimm is taking big breaths. More dialogue, and the grave is shown as being for Captain Grimm. “He starts digging in the hole made by the gravedigger”. Who? Baseball hat guy? “He unearths motorcycle handles”. By the way, there was just a break of music, and we could have elaborated more on literally anything… and didn’t. He emerges from the grave on a motorcycle. Again, who? Fuck it.

title: Twisted Metal

2 Days until the tournament, John and Quiet drive. I could be really bitchy and say one of them is driving, the other is a passenger, and better writers would have figured that out… but… I guess I typed it in. Quiet and John have a pretty lengthy conversation before Quiet notices a problem and they pull over. “John gets out of the car.” I’m fine with that. Quiet pulls away, leaving John to ride with his sister. “Dollface pulls up next to John, Ashley rides shotgun.” then she makes Ashely get out, and picks up John. Jeremy pulls up and picks up Ashley. Ashley gets in the car. Meanwhile, John sits in Dollface’s car. The AD notes some food wrappers. The AD points out a road sign. At a fork in the road, all three cars drive down different roads. Then in Quiet’s car, she pulls a Metallica CD from the center console, and puts it in the player. So far, we’re doing a lot better.

The song that plays is not Metallica. Quiet stops the car and finds Mayhem hiding in the trunk. Mayhem thinks she’s the best driver. Quiet gets out, Mayhem tries to steal the car, but can’t drive. It would be nice if Mayhem’s awful driving was supported by ANy audio description, since it goes on for a bit. Eventually it stops, Mayhem let’s Quiet back in.

John and Dollface are walking through some place. No real description of the place at all. But, inside, abandoned cars are scattered around. Wherever they are. There’s a note scribed. A figured watches them from nearby. The two sit in a car and smoke a joint. i figured out we’re at a drive in because John mentions not fixing a projector. The two of them talk and argue. Someone opens fire on them. From somewhere. Then lights turn on.There was no audio description about the gunfire. Not about where it came from, or if the shooters were visible, or if anyone got hit. Nothing. Two cars explode. John and Dollface run. “A man attached to a machine with two large tires.” Man. i feel like I’m going to need mor than that. I don’t know, but that is like the cliff note version. The sad thing is, a lot of this description has dead air around it. Just sound effects, or music in the background. somehow, it’s like these choices are to give us the extreme basics, and let us figure it out. I bet they describe paintings as “the thing on the wall, with some blue circles on it.” John and Dollface are hiding. I think Dollface got shot. The man rolls by them, then rolls away. The audio description never mentions her being shot, it’s only in the dialogue.

We make a full transition back to Quiet and Mayhem without an acknowledgement. Quiet is teaching mayhem to drive. i guess? Mayhem smiles at Quiet. Mayhem gets out and climbs in the trunk.

John and Dollface again. Transition ignored. John and Dollface leave, but the man is still driving around. He can get off the machine. He can walk. The man picks up a tube of lydacane.

We cut to Jeremy and Ashley having sex.Now, I assume this, because they are the other duo, but there’s no acknowledgement. Nothing in that scene was described AT. ALL. It sounded like some people found their car, wherever they are. I know they are the two more minor characters here, but nothing was described.

Quiet sits in the car while Mayhem is in the trunk. They talk a lot.

John and Dollface watch the man drink gasoline. The duo enters the projection shack, and we get some description about debris, and later a blueprint. A man with thick glasses ambushes Dollface. John mentions that this guy makes cars out of black people, so it might have been important to mention that the guy on wheels was black… since it is referred to later. Then, there’s a struggle of some kind and the guy with glasses gets impaled. They turn off the lights. John tries to talk to Axel. Axel drives away.

Then we see quiet and mayhem for a hot second, and then I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Out of nowhere, Mr Grimm sucks the blue light from Jeremy. Mayhem and Quiet drive off, being chased by Grimm. Axel and Grimm charge toward each other as Quiet and Mayhem drive off… listening to not Metallica.

Another unacknowledged transition back to John and Dollface. John shows a map. Quiet says Ashley and Jeremy are both dead, but we never got anything on Ashley dying. The four main characters are looking at a city in the distance, with pollution in the sky.

Credits.

And now the grade breakdown:

Quality Of Narrator: I have no idea who this is. I actually really like her voice, but she is given some of the worst description to read. It’s like watching Meryl Streep star in the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey universe. One of these things is not like the other.

Grade: 10/10

Quality of Sound Mixing/Engineering: there was one moment where the AD became a little hard to hear as the action rose. I’m not in favor of audio ducking either, but we probably could have balanced it a tad better.

Final Grade: 9.5/10

Description Of Characters: Being the third episode of the second season, the main characters in this episode, John, Quiet, Dollface, Mayhem, Jeremy, and Ashley would have all been described at another point, and only now based on if they made a significant change to their wardrobe. We don’t need constant description for series leads and recurring characters. that being said, the initial description needs to be great. So of the new characters, Mr Grimm got basically no description. he just shows up, sucks blue light, and drives off. No idea what he looks like. Axel is apparently black, which is referenced multiple times in the dialogue, and “man with glasses’ is white. This script isn’t interested in representation. Also “machine with wheels” is very weak. then, we had a guy with a baseball hat, and a gravedigger. I know they didn’t bring a lot to the story, but their description wasn’t great either. I did like the hat, but then the other guy got nothing. I have a feeling Grimm is going to reappear, which makes his lackluster description a shame. Aside from introductions though, description of characters also means what are they doing, and Ashely just vanished. No mention of her death. the scene with her and Jeremy having sex had no audio description. Dollface getting shot had no description. Axel shooting the guns had no description. these are still character based things.

Final Grade: 4/10

Description of Location/Scenery: Barely. we got little glimpses of food wrappers, debris in the projector room, the cars at the drive in, and a sign. But wherever John and Dollface went, in general, wasn’t described well before they went inside. Where Quiet and Mayhem were learning to drive, not great. They didn’t have a ton of locations, and the cityscape at the end was OK. This could have been done better though.

Final Grade: 7/10

Genre Specific Description: The violence here is intense, but you wouldn’t get that from this description. What were those sound effects in the graveyard? How did Ashley die? how did Jeremy die? was the guy with glasses impaled in a gory way? This is also a bit of a horror series, even if it leans comedy, so is Mr Grimm scary? At all? It’s a racing series, and there are whole segments where the driving isn’t discussed. The whole part of Mayhem locking Quiet out, and then unable to figure out how to drive away… what is she doing? If you write the bare minimum, you miss out on all the details, which leaves us with more questions than answers. If I have more questions after listening to audio description than I do an understanding of what i watched, then it didn’t work. And when you do a series, it compounds over time, as you have nothing to build on.

Final Grade: 3.5/10

Overall. Disappointing. As expected. Please do better, or get out of the game.

Final Grade: 34/50 or 68%. A D+.