I noticed yesterday that the #1 film of 2026, and quite possibly ever, a gift to humanity, which I’m sure if hurdling through space as we speak as a goodwill gesture to aliens, the 17 Time Academy Award Winning director Brett Ratner’s triumphant return to form with Melania. If you’ve got Prime, you’ve got Melania. Can’t wait to hear the AD track on that. Although… Amazon/MGM has skipped some titles recently, which is troubling.

TV Shows Watched: The Diplomat: S3E8 (Netflix) with audio description, Shrinking: S3E4 (Apple) with audio description, The Pitt: S2E7 (HBO MAX) with audio description, Vanished: S1E2 (MGM Plus) no audio description, and Paradise: S2E1 (Disney Plus) with audio description

The Diplomat- Finished. What a terrific season, and with that little twist right at the end. I’m eager to return to the political machinations of The Diplomat, which while not quite at The West Wing levels of political greatness, still flies above most other attempts at the same thing. It started in its first season buoyed by excellent performances from Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell and once they added Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford, the show truly took off. The audio description by VSI is really pretty good, focusing on a lot of the actors facial expressions and choices. There’s one where Janney glares at Russell at the most inopportune time, suggesting that what someone just said might be true. There’s even some extra attention to detail, like with Janney’s Grace, how she pulls at her bedazzled sleeve. Lovely.

Shrinking- Michael J Fox comes back around for his extra special work for which I’d be shocked if he didn’t win an Emmy, though I’d probably die if he didn’t get nominated. It seems so obvious. Also, the show picked up another patient in Sherri Cola, a new patient for Gaby. Harrison Ford continues to be the best reason to watch this, though Michael Urie’s performance is pretty damn perfect as well.

The Pitt- Oh Boy. This episode was tense. A lot is happening, with several different cases. As a disabled critic, I’m drawn to the deaf patient and their struggle to get an ASL interpreter. Luckily, they aren’t in critical condition and can wait for the bullshit. The episode also ends with something that is becoming a scary reality for hospitals. But, it is dominated by the tremendous work being done by all the actresses involved in the rape kit sequence. Truly, stunning work. the audio description also does a nice job of never overreaching during this segment, giving us just enough to get through it, but also allow the gravity of the moment to breathe. An excellent episode all the way through.

Vanished- this is the MGM Plus drama where Kaley Cuoco has her audio description taken from her, so she starts to follow a trail of clues that will hopefully lead her to the truth about who took her audio description and why. Though, it seems the plot to keep her away from audio description may be more nefarious, and who can she really trust? It’s only 4 episodes, and considering everything I read online says this is a USA debut, not something we inherited from another country, its lack of audio description is so bizarre. Then again, I started to watch (for like a minute) The Grey House, which I did find is an acquisition for Amazon, as that show was developed independently, and premiered at the 2024 MOnte Carlo Television Festival. Still, it is only on Amazon, and it didn’t have audio description. I switched out of that one, not realizing that episode length runtime was a construct not observed by The Grey House, as the first episode is 75 minutes. Switched over to Vanished, which also doesn’t have AD. While Prime and MGM Plus are technically different services, they essentially function like Disney Plus and Hulu. So, they have the same corporate daddy.

Paradise- Shailene Woodley comes for her Emmy nomination with the season premiere of PAradise, which picks up not where season 1 left off. It focuses on Annie (Woodley), who is a down on her luck young woman that is at Graceland when the world falls apart. we see her struggle to survive, knowing a little about her past. It should be interesting to see how she merges with the rest of the cast/show. I liked the audio description, though I’m not sure I transcended or anything. It is just enough, but there’s certainly a feeling they could have done more describing Annie’s progress over time, her living space, and more than just a cursory description of the other characters we meet. It is adequate audio description, just not overly verbose.