Kicking off the Small Screen Diaries for the day, in first place, is the exceptional limited series Last Seen on Apple TV+, which I finished today. So this is the series finale, unless they, for some reason, decide to make a second season, which seems to be happening to a lot of limited series right now. I wouldn’t put it past them, but how many times can this type of thing happen to the same family before it becomes ridiculous? There shouldn’t have been a sequel to Taken, but there were two, and a television series. So who knows? Regardless, Last Seen is an exceptional series that is incredibly well directed, acted, and written. If it weren’t Australian, I think it would absolutely be up for Emmy consideration. My worry is that because it’s Australian, voters have no idea what this is, will never watch it, and it will never get the credit it’s due. The cast is extraordinary, with some truly wonderful performances, and I cannot recommend this show enough. I also thought the audio description was really nice, and I’m glad they maintained the Australian aspect of the description. I don’t know if it was uniquely created in Australia or if they just found someone with an Australian accent living here and had them do it, but whatever the case, it works. I hope this is a big hit in Australia because it deserves to be. Over here, it’s more of a curiosity, something critics like that hopefully we can push onto audiences through our recommendations. I don’t want to spoil the ending because I thought it was a big swing, kind of heartbreaking, and something I appreciated all at once. This is an exceptional piece of television.

That means VisionQuest had to take a step down into second place because Last Seen was just sort of undeniable. This would be Season 1, Episodes 5 and 6, both of which dropped on Disney+ with audio description. Yes, there are little differences in the credits, but I really don’t need someone listing off every single thing floating around the screen while actual text credits are visible to sighted audiences. Regardless, both episodes were pretty solid. There was a nod to Tommy’s actual comic book name that I noticed, and ultimately, I’m enjoying the path that Ultron has been taking over the course of the series. We’ll see how he ends up and whether or not he’s going to factor into anything beyond VisionQuest. Paul Bettany has been a little cagey about how Vision or VisionQuest works into the upcoming Avengers movies, but I have a feeling something is going to bleed over. The question is how much, and what? There is a little bit of a convenience in Episode 6 when they’re headed to Madripoor, involving a certain stowaway who somehow magically finds themselves exactly where they need to be. I don’t know if people were aware of this or how this person got there. It just kind of happens, and I thought it was a bit of a convenience in the script that they glossed over. So, not perfect, but still very entertaining, and I’m looking forward to seeing how everything comes together.

In third place is Golden Axe, Season 1, Episode 5, on Paramount+ with audio description by the Media Access Group. This is a very entertaining show, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. That whole thing they did with Chicken Wing at the end, where they showed his journey and everything he had been through, but because he’s a nonverbal character, he can’t actually tell anyone where he’s been, was pretty funny. It’s such a ridiculous little joke, but it works because the audience knows so much more than the characters do. Really good audio description here as well, and the best comparison I can make is that if you like The Legend of Vox Machina, you will probably like Golden Axe. Or vice versa, I guess, if you’ve somehow never watched The Legend of Vox Machina. Both shows have that same kind of chaotic fantasy energy, and Golden Axe continues to be a lot of fun.

Fourth place goes to The Comeback on HBO Max, Season 3, Episode 3, with audio description by Tansy Alexander and 3Play Media. I think the first two episodes had more audio description, because this one struggled a bit to fit everything in, if I’m being honest. I wasn’t as aware as I had been in previous episodes of everything that was going on. I know it’s a tough series to describe, as most sitcoms are, but it’s an even tougher sit when you aren’t always sure why something happened or where someone came from. That’s a problem with a show where so much of the comedy comes from awkward interactions, reactions, and the ridiculous situations Valerie Cherish finds herself in. But Valerie is continuing to move forward with her show, and I love Lisa Kudrow in this role. I wonder if The Comeback will ever come back a fourth time, maybe another ten years from now. They just keep reviving it every once in a while to keep us on our toes, even when they say they won’t. At this point, Valerie Cherish might outlive all of us.

In fifth place is Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Red Flags on Paramount+, without audio description. I watched this special, and Klepper definitely gets some really good zingers in on people who are willing to admit some absolutely crazy shit. And not all of it is necessarily at the expense of the right. There’s one lady who says that our president in 2028 will be JFK Jr. And no, that’s not a joke. And no, she didn’t mean RFK either. She meant JFK Jr., because she actually says John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. It’s a baffling moment for everyone involved. I suppose the moment that wasn’t quite so funny was the guy who is clearly an American and whose wife had been here for 20 years under, I guess, some sort of refugee agreement after coming from Cuba. I don’t know why she wasn’t a full citizen or why she couldn’t become one, but apparently she was deported to Mexico, a country she isn’t even from. And he’s pissed. He was absolutely MAGA until they took his wife away from him, and now hell will be paid. It’s one of those moments where the comedy gives way to something much sadder, because you’re watching someone confront the consequences of policies they previously supported. Klepper is very good at navigating these kinds of interactions, even when the people he’s interviewing seem completely unaware of what they’re saying.

In last place, and by a mile, is My Life with the Walter Boys, Season 3, Episode 3, on Netflix with audio description by VSI. I mean, the audio description is really approachable, but this series is just so painfully written. It reminds me of going back in the day to those hokey episodes of 7th Heaven. This episode was really bad, guys. Just in terms of how they structure everything, put characters together, have them say certain things, and lead us up to these supposedly dramatic moments. Take the Walter brother who works with the school newspaper. He comes into the room, and his ex-boyfriend is like, hey, there’s a band coming, do you want to review it? Maybe? I thought you might want to. Let’s watch a video of them! And then suddenly there’s a strobing light, and he has what appears to be a seizure. I thought that was so random and so put on. The entire scene felt constructed just to get us to this shocking moment where we’re supposed to be concerned about him. Meanwhile, the somewhat love triangle that Alex finds himself stuck in is a bit too obvious, and the whole storyline with Jackie trying to find this public space, learning about the backstory of the store she wants, and then having to go in and convince this guy to help her is equally hokey. Everything feels so incredibly manufactured. It’s hard to get involved in any of it because you can practically hear the writers moving the pieces around the board. There are other young adult shows that manage to avoid this kind of painfully obvious storytelling, but man, this one really takes the cake. It’s not even close to the quality of anything else I watched today.

As far as audio description goes, I think the winner remains VisionQuest. It just has so much to contend with. There’s science fiction, action, and the entire fantasy landscape inside Vision’s brain that needs to be described. I like the little Easter eggs, including the reference to Speed, and all of the little details along the way involving things popping up on screens. There’s a lot happening visually, and the audio description does a very good job of keeping the audience informed without overwhelming the actual storytelling. Last Seen certainly had excellent audio description as well, and I appreciated the Australian narration, but VisionQuest just has a more demanding visual landscape, and the description rises to that challenge. It nudges everything else out for the top spot.

At the bottom, because nothing I watched today actually had bad audio description, I’m just going to give that distinction to Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse because it had no audio description at all. It also ended really abruptly. I don’t even think I had any sort of credits at the end. There was no notification, no real sense of closure, and suddenly I was watching a movie. It didn’t even feel like the logical conclusion of the Fingers the Pulse special. It was incredibly jarring, and the lack of audio description only compounded the weird transitional effect created by streamers and their determination to keep you watching literally anything, whether it makes sense or not. Apparently, if you like Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse, maybe you’ll like Tuner. Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. I watched a 30-minute special from The Daily Show, and then you decided to throw me into a nearly two-hour movie. I have shows on my Continue Watching list. You could have tried putting me into the most recent episode of The Daily Show. But no, you connected me to Tuner, and I would absolutely love to know what algorithm made that decision. Because when you combine the lack of audio description with an abrupt ending and an autoplay feature that apparently has no idea what I was watching in the first place, it creates a particularly frustrating experience. Sometimes I think these streaming services are so obsessed with making sure we never stop watching that they’ve forgotten we’re supposed to have some say in what we watch next.