Disney Plus, for me, still doesn’t show S24E4 of American Idol. Apple’s watchlist says if I just used the Hulu only app, I would get to see it, but unlike the previous three episodes, it doesn’t acknowledge that ability on Disney Plus with Hulu. Like, I can find these auditions online. I could try and piecemeal things together. This is just so weird. It’s a problem I would have assumed fixed itself by now, but I guess not. It doesn’t have AD anyway, so maybe the universe is intervening on my behalf.

TV Shows Watched: The Diplomat: S3E? (Netflix) with audio description, The Pitt: S2E5 (HBO MAX) with audio description, Hijack: S2E3 (Apple) with audio description, Vanished: S1E1 (MGM Plus) no audio description?, and Shifting Gears: S2E? (Disney Plus) with audio description

The Diplomat- All the important figures congregate at the beach house, and this episode was excellent. I also loved the little twist at the end. The AD seemed fine, from injuries, to grey pajamas, to the act of opening a bag of pretzels and stuffing the bag between the cushions, the little touches did a lot to make the space feel lived in.

The Pitt- Sometimes I feel like I need description on something, but I can’t get it because of dialogue. Then, the writers of the Pitt make sure everyone goes silent when it’s time to… unimpact an impacted bowel. Thanks. I was eating.

Hijack- I wish I cared. Poor Idris, he thanked me at the beginning, and let me know F1 was coming to Apple, and then I had to sit through the diminished version of his show, which seems to still be dangling a card out there, like it will fix everything when we know this one thing. Perhaps. I hope so. But in the meantime, I’m far more bored, far more prompt to being distracted, and I can’t even remember the AD at this point. Not every show needs a second season.

Vanished- Why doesn’t this have AD? I accessed it through the Amazon app, BTW, since the MGM Pus app ow supports AD, initially they only ran it through Prime. They are owned by the same parent company anyway, so this is like a Disney/Hulu thing. But, Kaley Cuoco’s new series had AD as unavailable. WTF? This is a brand new show, which is (from my research) not a show inherited from another country, like a BBC production, and is making its debut on the streamer. Fail. I tried to enjoy the show without it, and it’s a struggle. It’s a mystery, and while there is some dialogue, i wouldn’t call it dialogue driven. Amazon, fix your face.

Shifting Gears- It might be polarizing, but what Dave does when describing the actions of a tiny dog, is exactly what we need sometimes. Entire movies are based around the adorableness of animals, often hard to translate just in text form, since cuteness is somewhat subjective. But in the case of films where an animal is front and center, usually it is because they do cute things. I felt this with Merv, which was centered around a depressed dog. Dave finds a way to thread the needle, by doing what can best be described as that voice we all make to our babies and pets, even though we know they can’t hear us, but we still talk to them in that oh so cute voice. He does that here, and it’s one of those nice tools, that could really make a script pop, especially an entire film with a silent animal lead. If you’re sitting in a theatre, and everyone around you is just going awwww, and cooing over something because they can see it, but the AD isn’t getting you there, Dave’s incredibly human approach might. He’s also the best example of what AI can’t do. So, even if he’s not your cup of tea, it’s almost better to say he is, at the risk of getting a robot instead.