TV Shows Watched: Outlander: Blood of My Blood: S1E4 (Starz) with audio description, The Hunting Wives: S1E5 (Netflix) with audio description, Foundationn: S3E7 (Apple Plus) with audio description, Hitmakers: S1E4 (Netflix) with audio description, Ballard: S1E9 (Amazon) with audio description, Pop Culture Jeopardy: IDK (Amazon) with audio description, The Rainmaker: S1E2 (Peacock) with audio description, and Hostage: S1E1 (Netflix) with audio description

Outlander: Blood of My Blood- Yesterday, I got an email back from a rep, after saying I would love to screen and review their film, but if they had an English Audio Description track for the film, it would be great if that came along. After about a week, she responded with (basically) that she just found out from the distributor that the film has Spanish subtitles, and English CC available. Great. no mention of whether or not they actually did not, for sure, have audio description, and i look at Starz, which has been around forever, and I truly wonder if they even conceptually know what it is. The problem often is that the accessibility we need is decided upon by those who do not, and cannot understand why we do.

The Hunting Wives- We’re getting into the mystery part of the show, where the writers are biting off more than they could chew. they were fine as a guilty pleasure side show, but trying to build some grand conspiracy is not this brand. True, Desparate Housewives had some twists and turns, but that show was creatively stronger than this. I’m wondering if the party is over for The Hunting Wives.

Foundation- The problem with character deaths on this show, is that other characters have “died” and then reappeared, so I’m not quite sure the mechanic works anymore for this show to end basically with a death as a cliffhanger.

Hitmakers- They move to Nashville and write some country songs now, and all the songs were fine. I could hear them all on the radio.

Ballard- Another cliffhanger with a potential death. They also figure out who the killer is, and it is certainly a surprise. But, Ballard has to deal with stupid conversations about her dating, and what that’s like for her, in the middle of them chasing down leads for a serial killer. They are literally on their way to a house where a serial killer might be, and one of the other cops starts asking her what dating is like for her. Now? This is the best time for this conversation?

Pop Culture Jeopardy- If you stretch it out to essentially 1 episode a week, you can get some serious mileage out of this. A solid AD track from Roundabout, and better game show description than Match Game or Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.

The Rainmaker- Of the shows I’m currently watching through Peacock, this has the best audio description. It’s also not Diffuse. We also really ramped up the seriousness of the tone of the show. Lives started to hang in the balance pretty quickly.

Hostage- The first episode is a long introduction to all the characters. I have a feeling the next episode will pack more of a punch, as I wasn’t really enthralled by the pilot. sure, it has a really interesting concept which I’m sure they will use to full effect, but there’s no reason a show with only five episodes can’t white knuckle it the whole way through. I don’t need to be eased in. Throw me into the fire. You have five episodes. Use every minute, especially considering this episode is under 45 minutes. The audio description seems OK. I don’t have major thoughts, as there’s a lot of dialogue, though the parts that took place in French Guyana had more action.