TV Shows Watched: American Idol: S24E1 (Disney Plus) *STILL* with No Audio Description, Crutch: S1E3 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, Rick and Morty: S8E4 (HBO MAX) with audio description, All’s Fair: S1E4 (Disney Plus) with audio description, and The Daily Show: Monday (Paramount Plus) no audio description

American Idol- This show premiered on June 11th, 2002. Since then, Kelly Clarkson went on to have a crazy successful career, and now has her own talk show. Carrie Underwood is now a judge. Jennifer Hudson has an Oscar. Adam Lambert toured with Queen. Jordon sparks has been everywhere from In The Heights to Dancing With The Stars. Copycat programs popped up, notably X-Factor, Nashville Star, Rockstar: INXS, The One, America’s Got Talent, and of course, the Voice. In 24 seasons, in 24 years, American Idol has still not had audio description. And if it can’t get it together for the pretaped long ago auditions, they definitely aren’t running live shows. But all their reality show stalwarts, from The Bachelor to Survivor, and shows like The Voice and America’s Got Talent have all figured out some level of audio description. Even Netflix’s Star Search revival adds audio description after the fact. hell, Simon Cowell’s next Act has audio description. This show has been running too damn long. There just are no excuses. they will have no problem elevating a blind person into the competition, using their backstory to provoke emotion, but they won’t acknowledge the audio description that person would need to watch the show to know anything about them. I’m a long term, die hard fan. I’ve auditioned, I’ve gotten a golden ticket before, I used to be a paid Idol recapper. Every year, I cross my fingers and hope, today will be the day. Nope. Will they make it 25 seasons with no audio description? Probably.

Crutch- Tracy Morgan is actually kind of painful here. The writing doesn’t support him. As someone who was on SNL, I believe the show would likely be funnier if he just did improv. With him now on a new show, is Crutch dead?

Rick And Morty- Forgot I never finished Season 8. Getting back into it. Love all the AD. This show has fantastic audio description, and the narrator is perfect. I love how the credits remind us that Justin Roylan is still heavily involved as Executive Producer and Co-Creator. The AD reads all the credits. Justin is still getting paid, y’all.

All’s Fair- Hey look! Jennifer Jason Leigh! I have no idea why, her role is a shit role, but she’s here. This episode had emerald getting sexually assaulted via a date rape drug concoction, and trying to figure all that out. In what should have been impactful, grounded storytelling, the series continued its baffling understanding of complex human emotions. I haven’t started the Beauty yet, but I have a feeling Ryan Murphy died a few years ago and has been replaced by generative AI.

The Daily Show- Because, of course I did. I needed to hear him. But he also interviewed a journalist about Iran, and that guy had been imprisoned there for 544 days. he’s probably very aware of Iran. gotta say, the journalist was super chill, and a lot more cheerful than I expected.