TV Shows Watched: Star Wars: Maul: Shadow Lord: S1E7 (Disney Plus) with audio description, Big Mistakes: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, The Count Of Monte Cristo: S1E6 (PBS) with audio description, American Gladiators: S1E1 (Amazon) with audio description,Monarch: S2E6 (Apple) with audio description, and LAst Week Tonight: Most Recent (HBO MAX) no audio description yet

Maul: Shadow Lord- Yes, virginia, this is human narrated.I clocked that this was human narrated a while ago, yet I got wind of a complaint that this was AI. No. It’s Dave Wallace. You think Disney started to dive into TTS audio description, and they thought a Star Wars show, not even an old one, would be the way to go?Bro. The sad thing was, I had to seek confirmation just to make sure he wasn’t cloned. Crack is whack y’all, and make sure to not hit the pipe before consuming audio description. It’s not like Dave’s voice isn’t on like a dozen other films and TV shows right now to compare this with. There’s an extended fight sequence here between Maul and the Inquisitors that was well described and totally badass.

Big Mistakes- I love that Dan Levy thinks he can pull off being a pastor. He’s entertaining enough I’ll go for that ride, but the real standout of the show is Laurie Metcalf, who steals every scene she’s in. The show is kind of a wild premise, and heavily removed from Schitt’s Creek. The audio description seems fine so far, making a good joke out of some graveyard headstones.

The count Of Monte Cristo- This is just a really solid adaptation.I haven’t read the book, but I’m enjoying how this series is taking its time, and letting Edmund really get his revenge. I wouldn’t mind if this turned into a multi-season show at this point. I’m not bored at all, and media Access Group put together some nice audio description.

American Gladiators- I know a team worked really hard to make AD for this, but man this is a tough format to get into. I watched American Gladiators as a kid, so I remember the format, and having the entire thing described to me is as boring as America Ninja Warrior. The built in narrators make it even more difficult for the audio description, as they offer color commentary that takes up a lot of space. It isn’t bad AD, it’s just nearly impossible, which makes it frustrating. I can’t see myself watching much more of this.

Monarch- One of the better described Apple shows, this one traversed time, had the gang fighting monsters, and then Kate came face to face with a Titan she seems connected to.

Last Week Tonight- Oliver went after ChatBots like they were responsible for the opioid epidemic. I’ve ranted about AI before, primarily as an extension of how reliant on tech we are in general, but he loses the thread himself. I love Oliver, but he acts like the things the bots are saying to you are as reprehensible or deplorable as if a human was saying them. They aren’t. They aren’t human. While it’s not a great thing for kids to have NSFW interactions with bots, let’s be honest about the internet for a second, and say hardcore porn is a click away. They could be chatting with a real predator online, instead of an algorithm. So while you might feel uncomfortable with some of the things being said, and no AI should be encouraging kids to kill themselves, the other side of this is that no matter how adult the conversation gets, your kid is not having a conversation with an actual adult. It isn’t real. I’m also getting exhausted at the persistent backlash things get because parents don’t want to parent, and would rather things just not be around. In previous generations, we got grounded, spanked, or had things taken away for our bad behavior. We had to actually tell our parents what we were up to, and it wasn’t some mystery. Now, it seems like everyone is so socially defunct that it must be someone else’s problem all the time. Oliver’s entire rant hinged on the realization that AI is not human, yet he reacts to the things being said as if they were on the same level as a human saying them. They just aren’t. Your kid could be online talking to real humans, real strangers, with real danger. Instead, they are talking to an algorithm designed to mostly agree with them on any topic, that needs a few basic guardrails there to make sure a kid doesn’t use ChatGBT to figure out if this is a good noose or not.