On Sundays, I like to kick off the Small Screen Diaries with a look ahead at the week in television, highlighting some shows that might be of interest to you. These aren’t necessarily shows I’m going to tackle all at once, because, my God, am I watching a lot of random television programs. But there’s plenty coming this week, including ABC bringing back its Thursday night lineup of 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Nashville, and Grey’s Anatomy. FX has the second season of Ethan Hawke’s The Lowdown arriving Wednesday, while the fourth season of Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head lands on Comedy Central, presumably making its way to Paramount+ the following day, much like South Park. USA brings back The Rainmaker for its second season on Friday. However, the two biggest premieres this week are easily VisionQuest, which launches with two episodes Wednesday on Disney+, and Crystal Lake, which drops all eight episodes Thursday on Peacock. Both are highly anticipated expansions of established franchises. Netflix also brings back its Emmy-winning political drama The Diplomat, starring Keri Russell, for a fourth season Thursday, alongside a Victorious spinoff, for those of you who have apparently spent the last decade waiting for one. MGM+ premieres Treasure Island today. On the film side, HBO Max gets the streaming premiere of The Death of Robin Hood on Friday, while Netflix premieres Sacrifice, starring Chris Evans and Anya Taylor-Joy, and Apple TV brings us the historical drama Tenzing, featuring Tom Hiddleston. There are also plenty of documentaries, with Netflix offering new projects centered on Wu-Tang Clan, Norm Macdonald, and, in recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the controversial case of Leonard Peltier. Hulu is also taking us back to that bizarre period when creepy clowns were seemingly emerging from the woods to terrify people. So there’s no shortage of things to watch this week. But before all of that, I still have yesterday’s television to discuss.

Coming in first place is War, Season 1, Episode 2, on HBO Max, with audio description by ZOO Digital, narrated by Zambi Page. This British divorce drama, starring Dominic West and Sienna Miller, continues to be nothing if not interesting. I’ve seen people describe it as the divorce version of Succession, although I’m not entirely sure what they mean by that comparison. What we have here are two very talented actors playing a couple going through an increasingly complicated divorce, with their respective legal teams battling on either side and at least one character caught between two firms, whose loyalties could shift as the season progresses. The second episode was equally excellent, ending on a note that could significantly alter the trajectory of the series. What I find particularly interesting is that neither person getting divorced is being presented as the obvious protagonist or victim. They’re both complicated people, and the series is walking a very fine line in making sure that, whatever the outcome of this divorce, we don’t necessarily feel that one person deserved everything while the other deserved nothing. It’s trying to find a balance between the two, and so far, I think it’s doing that remarkably well. The audio description is also excellent. I feel like I’ve heard Zambi Page before, although I didn’t realize she was British. At the very least, she’s delivering a convincing British accent for this British import, and her narration fits the material beautifully.

Coming in second is Trying, Season 5, Episode 5, on Apple TV, with audio description by Pixelogic. This British dramedy continues to hit all the right notes, especially now that we’ve moved beyond the whole rowing-across-the-Atlantic storyline and returned to some of the more personal issues facing this family. There’s the ongoing question of whether Princess will ever get to see her birth mother again, which continues to provide some of the emotional weight of the season. Meanwhile, Nikki’s brief flirtation with a coworker appears to have been officially put to rest after she attends a performance of what he apparently considers music. It is one of the most instantly mood-killing performances imaginable. You could be incredibly attracted to somebody, but sitting through whatever the hell that was would cure you of that attraction almost immediately. It’s a wonderfully funny moment in a show that has always understood how to balance comedy with genuine emotional stakes. I love Trying. I appreciate what it brings to the table, and I’m genuinely glad it’s still around.

Coming in third is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which recently aired a new episode on ABC, although I watched it on Disney+ with audio description. Part of the reason this ranks so highly is simply because I enjoy the show, but I was also pleasantly surprised by how functional the audio description was this time around. I’ve complained about previous episodes where the description didn’t adequately communicate what was happening during lifelines, particularly when contestants used 50:50 or polled the audience, leaving blind viewers without information that sighted audiences were receiving. This episode managed to get those details right. There was even a lovely little moment during the first celebrity pairing, featuring Michael Keaton and Jon Lovitz, where the description noted that Keaton was walking in circles, repeating something Lovitz had done earlier. That’s exactly the kind of detail I appreciate, because it gives us a sense of the physical comedy happening in the studio instead of simply focusing on the questions and answers. It’s not a show that necessarily requires an enormous amount of audio description, but what it does require needs to be there, and this episode delivered.

Coming in fourth is Kevin, Season 1, Episode 7, on Amazon Prime Video, with audio description that continues to be perfectly fine. I’m still slowly working my way through this animated comedy, which was canceled after one season, so I suppose there’s no particular urgency to finish it. I do enjoy the series, though, and I’m still a little baffled that Amazon didn’t give it more of an opportunity. It has an incredibly talented voice cast led by Jason Schwartzman, alongside people like Whoopi Goldberg and Amy Sedaris, and the premise is essentially talking animals behaving badly. That’s not exactly unfamiliar territory for adult animation, but considering how crowded this genre has become, I think networks and streaming services need to give these shows some breathing room to develop an audience. Fox has attempted to do that with Universal Basic Guys, even as its newer animated offerings struggle to establish the kind of legacy enjoyed by The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad. Those shows didn’t become institutions overnight. Kevin deserved an opportunity to grow, and Amazon apparently wasn’t interested in giving it one. This particular episode takes some of the animals to Provincetown, which is famously a gay mecca, and provides another entertaining adventure with this strange collection of characters. It’s a cute show, and I’m disappointed that its future was cut short.

Coming in fifth is the season finale of The Five-Star Weekend, which ends in such a strange place that I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. The series has been picked up for a second season, and I suppose my response to that is, sure, why not? It has a talented cast, and the finale moves several characters in directions that suggest the writers were anticipating the possibility of continuing their stories. But what exactly does a second season of The Five-Star Weekend look like? Are we just going to keep having weekends? Is everybody going to reunite a year later so we can see how much progress they’ve made in their lives? I wish more had happened with the storyline involving Hollis and Gigi, because I think there was additional emotional territory worth exploring there. Still, I’m intrigued enough to see where they take the series next. The audio description, provided by Iyuno, is fascinating because it’s incredibly maximalist. It really tries to bring as much information to the table as possible, sometimes to the point where I can imagine other blind viewers finding it excessive. There are moments when the writing becomes a little too interpretive, presenting something in a way that could be considered an assumption rather than simply describing the visual information. I can understand why some people might object to that approach, even though I personally appreciate the ambition behind it.

Coming in sixth is Tomb Raider King, Season 1, Episode 7, on Crunchyroll, with audio description by Global3, written by Mobina Babu. This South Korean production continues to feel increasingly like a video game, with the characters pursuing different relics while the series gradually builds out the mythology surrounding them. The main character interacts with the world almost exactly the way a player would interact with a game, collecting power-ups, discovering the abilities of various relics, and receiving information that essentially functions like an on-screen gaming interface. It’s a fairly straightforward structure, but there’s enough world-building to keep me interested. The audio description continues to be excellent from a writing standpoint, and Mobina Babu remains one of the best writers working in the field. Unfortunately, Global3 continues to rely on synthetic narration, which means that even a wonderfully written script is being delivered without the emotional range that a human performer could provide. If Global3 ever collapses as a company, I sincerely hope Babu finds work with one of the larger audio description providers still employing human talent. I’d love to hear that writing paired with a narrator who can actually emote, because the scripts deserve that level of performance.

Coming in seventh and last is Anna Pigeon, which I finally decided to investigate after realizing that The Rainmaker was returning to USA this week. I hadn’t checked out Anna Pigeon when it premiered, so I figured I’d give it a shot. Unfortunately, that turned into an unnecessarily complicated adventure in figuring out where the hell this show actually exists. Ever since Universal decided to hemorrhage a substantial chunk of its cable television properties into Versant, USA has become something of an orphan when it comes to streaming. Anna Pigeon isn’t available on Peacock, and I couldn’t find it on another subscription streaming platform either. Fortunately, I still maintain a minimal cable package through Spectrum, primarily because I like having access to my local stations without relying entirely on rabbit ears. Don’t judge me. Hurricanes are a bitch when your only option for local television is an antenna. USA happens to be included in that package, so I was able to locate Anna Pigeon through Spectrum’s on-demand service. Unfortunately, Spectrum’s on-demand platform doesn’t offer alternate audio tracks, so even if the show has audio description somewhere, there was absolutely no way for me to access it. The situation became even more ridiculous when I discovered that Spectrum had the season available, except for the pilot. For whatever reason, the episodes started with Episode 2, so that’s where I had to begin. Thankfully, Anna Pigeon isn’t particularly difficult to figure out. It’s another procedural about someone investigating crimes, with the distinguishing feature being that our protagonist is a park ranger. That’s a reasonably interesting twist on a formula we’ve seen approximately a hundred times before, but those shows generally need a charismatic lead to make them work. CBS understands this, which is why you have someone like Kathy Bates anchoring Matlock. USA certainly understood it when they cast Tony Shalhoub in Monk. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the lead actress here particularly compelling, and while the park ranger setting gives the series something a little different, it isn’t enough to overcome the familiarity of the material. The lack of audio description certainly didn’t help. I’m also concerned about what happens to shows like Anna Pigeon, The Rainmaker, and Syfy’s The Ark now that they’re no longer under the same corporate umbrella as Peacock. Perhaps Versant will eventually negotiate streaming deals for these properties, but there’s no guarantee that any existing audio description tracks will accompany them. It’s depressing that a show can have audio description produced for its original broadcast, only for that accessibility to effectively disappear when viewers try to watch it later.

As for the best and worst audio description of the day, I’m actually giving the top spot to The Five-Star Weekend. I know that might surprise some people, particularly because I just acknowledged that the script can be overly interpretive, but I appreciate its maximalist approach. I also really like the narrator’s pleasant voice, which sounds like someone who could easily be narrating a Lifetime or Hallmark production. That voice might be incredibly grating if it were attached to a completely different kind of series, but for The Five-Star Weekend, it feels absolutely perfect. This is something I’ve talked about before when discussing how audio description companies should approach casting narrators. The voice should fit the project. Narration shouldn’t simply be about hiring somebody who can read a script clearly. There should be some consideration given to whether that particular voice complements the tone and atmosphere of the material. In this case, I think Iyuno got that exactly right. At the bottom, unfortunately, is Anna Pigeon, for practically every reason imaginable. It’s difficult to find, the available on-demand version doesn’t provide audio description, and there’s no guarantee that a future streaming home would preserve whatever accessibility may have existed during its original broadcast. We shouldn’t have to play detective just to figure out how to watch a television show accessibly, especially when the industry has already demonstrated that it knows how to provide audio description in the first place.