TV Shows Watched: The Walking Dead: Dead City: S3E1 (AMC Plus) no audio description, Margo’s Got Money Troubles: S1E8 (Apple) with audio description,Strip Law: S1E9 (Netflix) with audio description, The Westies: S1E4 (MGM Plus) with audio description, Top Chef: Season Finale (Peacock) with audio description, Pop Culture Jeopardy: S2E14 (Netflix) with audio description, The Hawk: S1E3 (Netflix) with audio description, Marshals: S1E10 (Paramount) with audio description
The Walking Dead: Dead City- On the AMC Plus app, this show is tagged as having AD. More importantly, since I switched to the app between S2 and S3, AMC Plus doesn’t know I’ve seen the first two seasons, so it wanted me to start at S1E1, so I had to manually choose S3, and then E1, and when I do that, it tells me the title of the episode, and individually lists this episode as having AD. It did not. Epic Fail. For fans, I’ll mention the series got a new showrunner, and he’s getting rid of the nonsense. Things that weren’t working are being killed, destroyed, or reversed. It has a much better flow.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles- Reviewed this yesterday. Go read it.
Strip Law- An episode that makes fun of the Heaven Is For Real book/film and this show just gets me. Sadly, Netflix axed this, so the next episode is the last. Really solid audio description though from a writer/narrator I’m not very familiar with.
The Westies- The Irish just did the bidding of the Italians, but they aren’t happy, because Gotti sees it as them stealing and reselling his product. A hit is put out on Sweeney, but will he survive? The AD here is fine. I like this show for what it is, a solid historical mob drama.
Top Chef- Season Finale, and the person I predicted would win did. The AD here is one of the weakest, but there’s a ceiling on Top Chef, so as much as I’d love to hammer this to death, there’s only just so much it can do. Describing the food in a meaningful way would be next level, right now we’re just getting a lot of identification.
Pop Culture Jeopardy- I didn’t quite get as many as I usually do, and we got a new champion.
The Hawk- Why is this show not funnier? By all accounts, everyone here is operating where they need to be, except I weirdly don’t find Ferrell’s Hawk funny, but Jimmy Tatro and Molly Shannon are more standouts to me. Ferrell should have just done a Ricky Robby series. Maybe it’s the fact the AD is ass. I don’t know.
Marshals- a well timed rockslide screws everything up, and while Garrett’s life hangs in the balance, the Marshals have to go do their job. Turns out someone Casey is hunting in this knows where the bodies are buried at Yellowstone, which matters because? His dad is dead. His brother is dead. Beth lives in Texas. The ranch was sold. No one lives there anymore. Blame it all on Jamie and call it a day. Bell’s got a surprise in this episode in the form of an inmate she knows far too well, much to Andrea’s surprise. The AD here was solid, and exactly like every other Taylor Sheridan show done by Media Access Group.
The Best: Strip Law- I often talk about certain formats not being conducive to audio description, and adult animation is one. Look at Mating Season. It is trying so hard. But this episode of Strip LAw brought out so much, and I appreciate it for a series not long for this world.
The Worst- Walking Dead: Dead City advertising itself as having AD when it does not is a special kind of evil. I may not like the AD of THe Hawk, but to not only brand the series but the specific episode, you wind up in a new circle of hell for that kind of shit. I’ll take Vito falling asleep while narrating sitcoms any day over shows lying to me about their presumed accessibility.
