Kicking off the Small Screen Diaries for the day is a renewal for Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, the Apple TV series that debuted in May and has finally been called up to the big leagues alongside other shows that premiered around the same time, like Widow’s Bay and Star City, which had already received second-season renewals. The Tatiana Maslany and Jake Johnson series attracted quite a bit of attention, but unfortunately, because of its premiere schedule, it was ineligible for this year’s Emmy Awards. It hadn’t aired enough episodes within the eligibility window, which puts it in the strange position of being eligible next year, assuming anyone actually remembers that. So Tatiana Maslany could theoretically receive an Emmy nomination next year for a performance that people were talking about this year. That’s a weird little loophole in the Emmy calendar.
Sadly, we are absolutely losing the audio description battle, and I genuinely don’t know what to do about it anymore. As I reported earlier, Wildwood is poised to become one of the widest domestic theatrical releases of an English-language narrative feature without audio description in years. There have been international titles that crossed the 2,000-screen mark without it, including Parasite at its widest point, but Wildwood is a particularly frustrating example. This is a film that reportedly cost $100 million to make, yet somehow nobody could find room in the budget for audio description. Making matters worse is the decision to distribute the film through Fathom Entertainment, a company that, to my knowledge, has never provided an audio description track for one of its releases. Last weekend, Neon released its major Oscar hopeful Fjord, starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, without audio description. This is a film Neon acquired before it went on to win the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Now, theaters showing Netflix’s La Bola Negra are also listing the film without audio description. Here’s another major Oscar contender, a Cannes Best Director winner and Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award winner, collecting accolades while apparently leaving blind audiences behind. All of these companies can find money for elaborate Oscar campaigns, but somehow accessibility is where they draw the line. Aside from dragging them on social media with my limited reach, I genuinely don’t know what else to do, because they seem perfectly content telling us to pound sand. After all, Neon won Best Picture for Parasite without providing audio description, and Netflix reportedly spent as much as $60 million campaigning for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma without ever making it accessible to blind audiences. We allowed it then, and now they keep doing it. I don’t know how we stop this unless Kelly Clarkson decides to tweet about it.
I did actually watch some television, so let’s get into that. Fairly easily taking the top spot is Vision Quest, the new Marvel Cinematic Universe series bringing Paul Bettany back as White Vision, the resurrected version of a character we’ve known and loved for more than a decade. James Spader also returns as Ultron, although this time there’s an interesting mechanic involving Ultron existing inside Vision’s mind. It plays around with the idea that these characters are sentient artificial intelligence, essentially code, and if Vision can be recreated, why couldn’t Ultron? The series also saves a little money by allowing James Spader to appear as himself instead of requiring him to be transformed into Ultron. So sighted audiences actually get to see James Spader, now an older man with a beard, instead of the artist formerly known as Ultron. Paladin, played by Todd Stashwick, appears to be the primary antagonist, although he’s a hired gun rather than somebody with ambitions of world domination. Stashwick gives him an interesting moral neutrality, suggesting that he operates according to his own code, even when that puts him directly against Vision. We also get Tommy, otherwise known as Speed in the comics, the other son Wanda essentially wished into existence. We already got Billy, a.k.a. Wiccan, in Agatha All Along, so bringing Tommy back makes sense as Marvel continues expanding that part of its universe. Hopefully, whatever Marvel has planned for Billy and Tommy builds upon what we’ve seen in these shows, especially if Wanda and Vision are approaching the end of their respective arcs. I watched both available episodes, so I’m completely caught up, and I really enjoyed the British audio description, which was a nice change of pace. There’s an enormous amount happening inside Vision’s head, much of it abstract and artistic, and the description does an excellent job keeping up with it. The only warning I would give is that the series continues describing visual material during the credits without necessarily announcing that you’ve reached the credits. So be careful, or you might accidentally sit through ten minutes of credits thinking there’s still something happening.
Coming in second is Last Seen, season one, episode four, on Apple TV. Intense is probably the easiest way to describe this Australian thriller, especially considering the absolute gut punch waiting at the end of this episode. I’m curious to see where the series goes from here, because it continues to be incredibly well-made television with strong performances and a story that keeps pulling me further into it. I feel like this should be getting significantly more attention than it is, although, to be fair, it’s probably already getting more attention than the average Australian thriller would. Still, this is the kind of series that deserves to be trending and generating conversations the way Adolescence did. It’s excellent television, and the audio description has been consistently solid.
In third place is Ghosts, season five, episode 17, which once again finds the house dealing with an election, this time with flower power threatening to take over. It was a cute episode, and honestly, I like Ghosts enough that it doesn’t have to work particularly hard to land somewhere near the top of my rankings. The show continues to be reliably funny and charming, and its audio description, provided by the Media Access Group, is just as reliable as it always has been.
Fourth place goes to the season four finale of Jeopardy! Masters, which means I finally know who won. Don’t worry, I’m not spoiling it, just in case you’re somehow even further behind than I was. I actually found the audio description occasionally useful, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. I’ve mentioned before that I think Jeopardy! Masters is moving in the right direction with accessibility. It’s not quite at the level of Pop Culture Jeopardy!, but it’s considerably better than what we were getting with Celebrity Jeopardy! I’m still fairly certain the narration is synthetic, though. I also wonder how many people go back and watch older seasons of Jeopardy! Masters, especially considering that it’s not a daily syndicated program with the kind of endless rerun potential that other game shows have. Unless you’re studying to become a contestant, are you really going back and watching old tournaments? On a completely unrelated note, I would love to see a blind Jeopardy! superchampion someday. Just somebody who walks onto that stage and starts racking up one of those massive winning streaks. That would be fantastic.
Fifth place goes to Tires, season three, episode four, I believe. Shane Gillis continues to be a controversial figure, and Tires continues to be a fluctuatingly funny television series. This particular episode didn’t do much for me, although Thomas Haden Church is always a welcome presence whenever he shows up. Frankly, if Church hadn’t joined the series in season two, I’m not sure I would have continued watching. Now that he’s a series regular, he’s become the primary reason I keep coming back. He’s perfectly cast as Shane’s father and routinely outperforms everybody around him, including the star. No, I haven’t listened to Shane’s recent monologue, but if you’re familiar with his comedy, you know that he’s frequently trying to be edgy or intentionally offensive. Tires certainly demonstrates that. I’m conflicted about that approach because I don’t believe comedy should be intentionally harmful, but at the same time, I don’t want comedy to completely lose its edge. I don’t want comedians to become so afraid of making a joke that we eventually stop making jokes altogether. So I’m keeping an eye on Shane Gillis, even if I don’t always know what to make of him. And just because I watch Tires doesn’t mean I universally endorse everything he says or does.
I didn’t finish it, but I should also mention that I attempted to watch Dancing with the Stars, season 35, episode three, the first episode where the male and female celebrities begin competing together. Unfortunately, the show still doesn’t have audio description. This is the second week I’ve attempted to watch, and we’re already five weeks into the season. If Disney had any intention of providing audio description, I would think it would have appeared by now. Dancing with the Stars has offered audio description in previous seasons, which makes this regression even more frustrating. I’ve been increasingly disappointed with the direction Disney has taken regarding accessibility, and losing audio description on a series as inherently visual as Dancing with the Stars is another example of that troubling trend. I’ve given them enough time to make the show accessible, and I’m not interested in continuing to wait around for something that should have been available from the beginning.
As for the best audio description of the day, somewhat ironically, that honor goes to a Disney+ series, Vision Quest. There’s just so damn much happening visually, particularly inside Vision’s mind, and the description manages to communicate all of that complicated imagery remarkably well. I loved the creative approach to those sequences, and I appreciated how thoroughly they were described. At the bottom is Dancing with the Stars, which loses by default because the absence of audio description has convinced me to abandon both the episode and the season entirely. There is absolutely no reason for a show that depends so heavily on choreography, movement, costumes, and visual performances to be inaccessible to blind viewers, especially when it has been accessible before. So nobody’s getting my vote this season. Sorry, Mirrorball hopefuls.
