Kicking off the Small Screen Diaries for the day, I hope everybody had a lovely Veterans Day, especially veterans. I know there was a little bit of a lively party at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a little bit of a rowdy ruckus from some random guy who caused a bit of a news story. But if you’re wanting some TV news, I’ll say that they’re moving forward with another spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy. This one is set in Texas, at a smaller hospital, and is being set up to debut during the 2027–2028 season. It was supposed to debut this season, but it did not get California tax credits. I guess their answer to that was to just move it to Texas and restructure the show to accommodate the move.
In first place for the day is Vision Quest, season one, episode eight on Disney+, with audio description by Deluxe. There’s no narrator credited on this, which is troubling, because the last Marvel project that Deluxe did, they used a synthetic narrator for it, and while I don’t recognize this narrator’s voice, man, I hope it’s human. Although there’s some irony in that, given the entire show is about synthetics. But I did finally finish the show, and fully intend to review it in its entirety, but I am not doing that right now. I will say that the end-credit sequence has two little scenes, the second of which was not even given to press as part of their screeners, because it is the one that ties into Doomsday directly. And obviously, I did like the audio description for the show. It was written well, and if this is synthetic, then I guess we have lost the war. But the whole series was done well. Lots of descriptive stuff for all of the fantasy worlds that exist inside Vision’s head. And if I had to predict where its awards future lies, I’m gonna guess no Golden Globe nominations. Possibly Critics Choice, but most likely James Spader, Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, for his work here as Ultron. James Spader is an actor who has won multiple Emmys already, and has been nominated pretty consistently across his career. I would imagine Emmy voters still have a lot of love for him, and his showy role here will likely get him into the supporting actor race.
Coming in second place is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, season three, episode one on Amazon, with audio description. I stayed as long as I could in the credits, but it pushed me into the next episode because it dropped four episodes simultaneously. I was able to see the “This Season on The Lord of the Rings” that they aired, but I didn’t catch who made the audio description. I also realized that sometimes, with these shows that take a lifetime to come back, that opportunity right before we watch the season premiere to give us, like, five minutes of a recap is so vital. I had totally forgotten everything that had happened in previous seasons, except I remembered liking everything that had happened with the dwarves. But as far as the actual story, I only remember bits and pieces, not enough to coherently be excited about the direction of the new story. Of course, it has characters from other works, like Galadriel and Sauron, so I can follow it vicariously by having already known who those people were, even if I don’t remember the first two seasons. But Amazon likely would have benefited from a pretty hefty “previously on” ahead of the season premiere. There’s a little bit of one, but it’s not enough, not for how long they have been off the air. The longer you’re off the air, the longer your “previously on” needs to be, because it’s unlikely people went back and binge-watched the first two seasons, or even the previous season. Not everybody has that kind of time in their life. It’s hard to gauge in terms of quality versus where I felt it was before, but I feel like it’s still where it is. And I still do enjoy the entire storyline with the dwarves, and the actors playing them, I think, do wonderful work. I wish they were a show unto themselves. There’s a lot of Sauron in this, and I suppose that’s going to be the thing moving forward. No longer just an Eye of Sauron, but an actual physical presence. The audio description was really robust. There were a couple battle sequences. It’s a pretty long episode. It broke an hour, as did the Vision Quest season finale. So if you try to watch both of these in the same day, prepare to hold two hours of your life together.
Third place goes to The Daily Show on Paramount+, no audio description. Jon Stewart reacting to the midterms was pretty entertaining, and then his guest was Rachel Maddow. So I enjoyed the entirety of the episode instead of him inviting some crypto bro or somebody on there to talk about how crypto is ruining our lives. I actually had a guest that I didn’t mind listening to.
Fourth place, Rick and Morty, season eight, episode nine on HBO Max, with audio description. There was a cool little scene at the end with Jerry that started to make me laugh, but it was trapped within the countdown to the next episode, so I didn’t get the totality of it. Definitely a problem specific to how I watch the episode, as I’m sure, depending on your screen reader, you have a slightly different experience in that moment. But I did kind of hate the fact that what was a cute gag with Rick and Jerry was squashed by this weird countdown. Excellent audio description, though. I love the work that they do here to try to bring out the humor in each episode. I didn’t like this one as much as the previous one with Rick and Morty climbing the food chain, but it’s fine.
Fifth place goes to Women in Blue, season two, episode four on Apple TV, with audio description. I realize that the credits, even if you get to listen to them, credit the company that created the dub track, not necessarily the company that also created the audio description to accompany the dub track. I think once I mentioned the credits for a show like this, and somebody came along and said, well, it’s Pixelogic that does the audio description, and the other company just does the dubbing. But this time I listened to the credits and I never heard Pixelogic. I only heard the dub brothers, whatever they’re called, that do the dubbing for this. I have mixed feelings about Women in Blue’s second season and the serial killer thing, but it’s still a good show. It’s still a good cast. I just think they didn’t need to go back to the well in terms of doing a second season of serial killers when the show in and of itself is about women breaking into a job previously not open to them. So you can do a lot of things with that. They don’t have to just go after serial killers.
Sixth place is Leanne, season two, episode five on Netflix, with audio description. For basically just being Leanne, it was a pretty basic episode, with Leanne possibly second-guessing her decision to remain single. And Kristen Johnston did some funny stuff as the sister. It didn’t quite have the emotional depth to it that the previous episode had.
And down in last place, in seventh, is Tulsa King, season four, episode one on Paramount+, with audio description. Not really sure what we’re doing here except accumulating cast members. Not really sure what the purpose of the show is. I know we’re moving it to New York, and that is the direction, the goal for next season. And at some point, I guess, here we will officially move everyone to New York, or kill everyone off and move Sylvester Stallone to New York. I’m not really sure what the direction of the series is. But damn, there are a lot of people in the show now. So as we continue to accumulate cast members, it means that some of them could also be whacked, as revealed by the very obvious head-in-a-box trick that has been done to death. That happens again within the Tulsa King episode. I just wasn’t very impressed. I like Tulsa King. I think Stallone is fun in it. But as far as a season premiere, I was kind of like, where are we headed, guys? What are we doing here? Why are we here? What is the point? I can’t just be excited that you’re back. I need you to justify your return.
In terms of audio description, I would say the best is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. There’s just so much to describe in that fantasy world. I know that’s edging out Vision Quest, which was also terrific, but between the two series, I think Rings of Power has a slight edge here. There were just some really excellent sequences, like Sauron using his abilities to bring someone back, or the battle with Galadriel, when she notices their foes running away and orders the troops to stand tight, and the description about their shields kind of linking together. There’s so many little things to put together in a fantasy description. But Vision Quest is also right there as being terrific. At the bottom, I don’t know that anything makes sense for the worst of. So I have one show with no audio description. That’s The Daily Show. I guess it would be at the bottom. There wasn’t anything that struck me as being particularly bad about this list of shows.
