Kicking off the Small Screen Diaries for the day is a fond farewell to the heads of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran, who have unfortunately been replaced by former Marvel executive Jeremy Latcham. Despite being creatively strong across the board, with the exception of Supergirl, it feels like they lived and died based on one movie. That’s incredibly rare, because if everyone lived and died based on one flop, nobody would be working in Hollywood. Especially Kevin Feige, who continues to remain at the top of Marvel despite having made films that haven’t even earned back their budgets. Yet Disney hasn’t yanked him from running Marvel. With Paramount now in charge, I can’t help but feel this decision is politically driven, and they’ve toppled Gunn and Safran in favor of someone more on their wavelength. This is unlikely to affect projects currently in production, like The Batman Part II and Man of Tomorrow, but as far as whatever future James Gunn had planned for DC, we may be looking at yet another reboot. It depends on whether the new leadership agrees with his casting choices and the projects he’s already put into motion. I don’t know what this means for the future of Lanterns or the Poison Ivy series that was announced. I guess we’ll find out in the coming days. The only reason I’m not going scorched earth over this is that if you happened to catch James Gunn’s reaction, there was almost a sense of relief. Not that he wasn’t proud of what he accomplished, but that he was finally free from the corporate responsibilities of running a studio and could return to being a creative. Almost like he felt trapped in the position and couldn’t find a way out. Now he gets to focus on storytelling again, notably as the director of Man of Tomorrow. So perhaps this is actually a blessing for Gunn, even if it leaves the future of DC looking incredibly uncertain. As always, spoilers ahead for the shows below.

In first place for the day is Below, season one, episode six, on Netflix with audio description by VSI. This is the finale of the limited series, which I do hope to actually review. I’ve been incredibly impressed with Josh Hartnett’s performance as Calvin Penney. He’s matured so much over the years and gives a performance I never would have imagined from the actor I remember watching in films like Halloween H20 and The Faculty. Seeing him playing the patriarch of this family, with a son old enough to be played by Charlie Heaton, also made me feel incredibly old. But I love how the series manages to maintain its creature-feature elements without allowing them to dominate the story. It remains character-driven in a way that I think is actually more successful than what Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has managed across its first two seasons. They also leave things in a place where a second season would certainly be possible, even though this was billed as a limited series. Then again, I don’t trust limited series anymore. I’m sure if somebody wanted to make a second season of East of Eden, they’d figure out how to do that too, even though it would probably be a horrible idea. Below manages to deliver a satisfying conclusion while leaving just enough room for the possibility of returning to this world.

In second place is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the most recent episode, without audio description. I kind of really hate Pete Hegseth, and I cannot wait to see him impeached. This entire episode was essentially devoted to all the reasons why it’s time to dump him, and it was particularly interesting that it aired the night before Representative Thomas Massie introduced articles of impeachment in the House. Talk about prophetic timing. John Oliver has a remarkable ability to take something that is already infuriating and somehow make it both more infuriating and incredibly funny at the same time. This was certainly one of those episodes.

In third place is Eternally Yours, season one, episode one, on Paramount+ with audio description. I mean, this is a pilot. If nothing else, this is a pilot. This is how you do pilots. The art of the television pilot has not been entirely lost. This is a show that introduces you to its characters, the world in which they live, and the overall premise without making you feel like you’ve wandered into the middle of something. It’s basically a rip-off of What We Do in the Shadows, but with a little more romantic entanglement thrown into the mix. Instead of having Guillermo as the familiar, we have Max, played by Jaren Lewison, falling in love with Emma, played by Helen J Shen, and unexpectedly discovering that her family is a coven of vampires. Her parents, played by Ed Weeks and Allegra Edwards, have been together for centuries, and there’s plenty of comedy to be mined from that situation. Most of it worked on me. I kept thinking there’s absolutely no way this show would exist on CBS if Ghosts hadn’t become so popular. What’s weird is that it’s not even paired with Ghosts, which makes absolutely no sense in the entire world. Instead, it’s paired with Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. Who thought that was a good idea? It also demonstrates how little traditional television lineups matter anymore, because everything eventually ends up on streaming anyway. Still, the fact that anybody would pair this with Georgie & Mandy is clinically insane. It feels like it was created specifically because Ghosts exists. The audio description is also very similar to what CBS does for Ghosts, and I enjoyed the pilot enough to keep watching. I do think Ghosts is the better show, though.

In fourth place, jumping up a little bit as the plot starts revealing itself, is Small Prophets, season one, episode two, on Apple TV with audio description. They’re incorporating far more fantasy elements than I anticipated coming out of the first episode, which means the need for audio description is becoming increasingly evident. This quirky little British comedy continues to follow Michael as he starts producing these strange creatures, inspired by something his father told him, while somebody else seems to be snooping around. Meanwhile, he’s still a genuinely horrible employee at the DIY store where he works. I also thought it was interesting that over in the UK they refer to it as a DIY store instead of a hardware store. It’s those little cultural differences that occasionally catch my attention. But the show itself is growing on me, and as the fantasy elements become more prominent, I’m finding myself increasingly interested in where this strange little story is going.

In fifth place is The Traitors: New Blood, season one, episode seven, with audio description. Or season five, episode seven, depending on how you want to count it. Technically, this is the first season of New Blood, but they’re also rolling it into The Traitors in general. Personally, I’m calling it season one because New Blood should be distinguished from the celebrity version they’ve been running. It’s sort of like the American Idol debate. Do you count the seasons beginning with its move to ABC, or do you include all the previous seasons on Fox? Anyway, this entire episode is dominated by Victor and Fruitgate, and how that situation eventually works out for him is left on a cliffhanger. The only contestant actually eliminated during the episode was murdered by the Traitors, because we have to wait until next week to find out who gets voted off at the Round Table. That’s because a special prize was won during the challenge, called the Pardon. Whoever controls it gets to decide whether the contestant eliminated at the Round Table actually goes home or receives another chance. I assume everything comes with a price, and we’ll find out what that price is in the next episode. Unless the person being eliminated happens to be a particularly strong ally, I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to save them. But we’ll see how this new twist plays out.

In sixth place is The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System, season one, episode five, on Crunchyroll with audio description by Global 3, written by Michael Williams. This show continues to grow on me as we explore more of its MMORPG-inspired fantasy world, where characters are leveling up, developing their abilities, and navigating different power trees and skill sets. Our main character encounters another player who has been treated poorly by the group they recently accompanied on a raid, but recognizes that this person’s particular skill tree is far more valuable than anybody else realizes. He offers to team up, which seems like it could open up some interesting possibilities. There was also a particularly memorable piece of audio description here, delivered by a narrator who sounds an awful lot like Adrienne Barbeau, although I haven’t confirmed that it’s her. It involved describing one of the female characters from the other group as having unusually large breasts, which I assume reflects that exaggerated character design you often find in video games. It reminded me of something I used to see constantly when playing games, where male players would create female characters who looked absolutely nothing like women in real life, usually maximizing the chest size whenever the character creator allowed it. It’s an interesting example of audio description having to communicate those visual choices, even when they’re ridiculously exaggerated.

In seventh place is Helluva Boss, season one, episode two, on Amazon with audio description from Media Access Group. This quirky little animated series reminds me quite a bit of Hazbin Hotel, particularly with the musical numbers and its irreverent sense of humor. The episodes are relatively short, which makes them easy to squeeze into an already overloaded viewing schedule. They don’t do a tremendous amount for me, but they’re quick enough that I can keep moving through them without feeling like I’ve made some enormous commitment. It’s sort of like tossing in an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball or Adventure Time between longer shows. There’s a certain appeal to that, even if I’m not completely sold on the series itself.

In last place is Murder in a Small Town, season one, episode three, currently available on Netflix with audio description by Descriptive Video Works, narrated by Tanzi Alexander. This third episode just felt far too obvious, and I’m not going to lie, there was some pretty bad acting going on here. The actress playing the antagonist for this particular mystery wasn’t especially convincing, and the whole thing felt like it was telegraphing its intentions long before the episode actually got around to revealing anything. I don’t mind a procedural being somewhat predictable, but there’s a difference between allowing the audience to solve a mystery and practically handing them the answer. This one just didn’t work particularly well for me, so it lands at the bottom of today’s rankings.

And that’s everything I watched. In terms of audio description, I still think the best goes to Below. Across all six episodes, there was really only one moment where I felt the audio description didn’t work, and it wasn’t in this finale. Otherwise, the series has been consistently excellent in that department. The rest of the shows were all pretty decent, and nothing really stood out as being particularly poorly described. I don’t especially want to put Last Week Tonight at the bottom, because I know it eventually receives audio description, but I’m simply too impatient to wait for it. Nothing else really makes sense as the worst. I suppose The Traitors, simply because of its format, might have the least amount of description, but it also has far more audio description than the franchise has ever had before. We had to sit through three seasons of The Traitors before finally getting functional audio description for the show, and I know just how much worse it used to be. So, by default, Last Week Tonight lands at the bottom for audio description simply because the episode wasn’t described when I watched it. Not exactly a fair fight, but that’s where we are.