Anexis Matos

Synopsis

Charlie starts crushing on Nick. In order to get closer to him, Charlie joins the rugby team. Nick begins to reciprocate Charlie’s feelings. However, this confuses him. As he and Charlie get to know each other, he starts to get to know ⠓⠍⠋⠲

Where’s the Love for Blind People?

I heard of Heartstopper before the show came out. Some of my favorite BookTubers talked about the graphic novels. They talked about how great they are. Even now, I wonder why the graphic novels haven’t been adapted into audiobooks like Nimona. Where’s the love for blind people? We want to experience graphic novels, too.

Story Review

I love this show. It’s so great. I only have one critique, but that’ll come later in this review.

The writing is great. The story develops naturally. The thing I love so much is the character writing. The female characters are especially well written. I appreciate that they aren’t written to compete with each other or make the male characters better. Also, there’s something to be said about the fact that Imogen isn’t written to be a bitch like many women happen to be in teen shows.

There are no inconsistencies that I can find. Inconsistencies tend to irritate me, unless I’m consuming a story for entertainment. If that’s the case, I don’t pay attention. I watched this series for pleasure. However, there are some interesting themes explored and inconsistencies could have made them less compelling or they could have fallen apart.

The problem with inconsistencies is that they can create issues in a plot. A very good example of this is the first season of Elite. Marina is a young teenage girl who was murdered and, throughout this season, we see the events that led up to it. I’m going to go into a spoiler now, so skip forward if you don’t want to know anything that happens in this season.

Early in the first season, it’s revealed that Marina is interested in investigative journalism. She talks about how she has evidence that her father is involved in illegal things. This, unfortunately, doesn’t come up again. Because this is a thriller, I expected that to be a possible motive for her murder. After all, everyone has a difficult relationship with Marina. As such, everyone has a motive to kill her.

I consider this an inconsistency because it’s revealed and dropped. By the end, it means nothing. It’s just something the writers drop for some reason. I think this can be done, but, in a mystery, everything has to matter. Otherwise, there’s no reason for it to be there.

In heavily plot-driven stories, all the events have to matter. Inconsistencies can be useful for a character. People are unpredictable. Confusing. There’s no one way a person acts. However, there are certain things that need to be a part of the story, especially if it’s big.

Everything matters in this series. Every single storyline means something. As a writer, I find writing too many storylines hard to do. I applaud the writers for making every single one important.

The teen shows I’ve seen on Netflix fall into cliché traps. Drugs, sex, and alcohol are the big three. This show, thank the universe, does not. It’s very sweet. Very hopeful.

One of my favorite aspects of the story is the fact that Nick doesn’t know he’s bisexual. His journey to find out about his sexual orientation is beautiful. This aspect of the story is developed very well and it genuinely feels like a teenager trying to gain some understanding. It feels like a regular person doing research to understand themselves. As a person who questioned their gender earlier this year, I related to the extensive search. I’m still doing that to a point and I’m learning so much more about myself.

My one critique is that there should be more regarding the side characters. They’re established very well and have their own storylines. However, I feel they need more development. This is the first season, though. I believe the writing will definitely get better.

Conclusion

Overall, this show is great. The first season is only eight episodes and they’re between 22 to 32 minutes long. Although I didn’t binge it during a day, it’s definitely possible to do so. It’s very easy to be drawn into the series and continue watching episodes. It’s definitely one of the best series I’ve watched recently. I recommend it for anyone whose interested in a sweet romance.

Audio Description

The next part of this review will focus on audio description. I chose to review this separate from the story as it’s more of an addition to the series. If you’re still reading, thank you so much. You’re one more person I can inform about the wonderful experience of watching a series with audio description.

For those who don’t know, audio description is a separate audio track added to visual media that describes key visuals. This is mainly intended for a blind and visually impaired audience. However, anyone can use it. I took an audio description class last semester and my professor mentioned she uses it when she’s doing stuff around the house.

It’s very important to me to bring awareness to audio description. Although it’s somewhat known, it’s not known enough in my opinion. It’s important for people to know about it so that it’s hopefully included in more visual media.

For the record, audio description narrated by synthesized voices is not good enough. I have not personally watched anything described by a synthesizer. If I find myself in that situation, I will turn off audio description and, if the series is interesting, I might continue to watch it this way. Unfortunately, I’ll miss the visual aspects, but I refuse to listen to something with such low quality.

If a company uses synthesized voices to narrate audio description, it suggests to me that they don’t care about their blind and visually impaired audience. You put no effort in when using a synthesizer to narrate an essential part of the series for us. It also suggests that we should be grateful for even being considered. Let me make something clear. As a blind person, I deserve better, so no. I’m not grateful. I will never be grateful for low quality BS.

On that very lovely note, I hope you enjoyed a taste of my views on audio description. It honestly deserves it’s own piece, so I’ll consider writing one in the future. I have many opinions.

Audio Description Review

As I mentioned earlier, this season is eight episodes. I have quit series halfway through because the audio description is awful. The two that come up for me are Wu Assassins and The Ultimatum. Both are Netflix originals that didn’t have the best audio describers. The audio description may have been written well, but it got lost in the terrible delivery.

I’m glad to say that the audio description in this series is amazing. The word choice is great and the delivery is even better. I can’t say whether they miss visual aspects or not, but I’m very pleased with what I got. I do have a critique, but that’ll come later.

Two important things to consider when delivering audio description are not to interrupt the dialogue and letting blind and visually impaired viewers listen to and appreciate the soundtrack. The audio describer does both. It sounds very natural. It doesn’t feel as though things are missing, but I can’t be sure if that’s true. I tend to feel that things might be missing when watching an older series.

The audio describer is not super emotional, but they’re also not boring. The narration meets the sweet spot. Just the right amount of emotion without distracting. Perfection.

I believe this audio description was done by Descriptive Video Works. They usually do a great job. I can’t remember seeing a bad audio description from this company. If there is one, I probably blocked it out because it’s not good.

My critique is something that, unfortunately, is very common. I specifically only see this in Netflix because it’s the streaming service I use the most that contains audio described shows and movies. The company as a whole needs to do better. Apple TV+, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t do this and they charge a lower price, so Netflix has no excuse.

As of this writing, audio description is only available in English. The series is offered in other languages, but audio description is not available in those languages. English speakers are not the only blind and visually impaired viewers. Because this series is not audio described in other languages, blind and visually impaired viewers who do not speak English miss the visual aspects because Netflix decided it’s a great idea not to offer audio description in all the languages it offers the series in.

Conclusion

Overall, the audio description is great. As I said, I can’t say if it’s missing any visual aspects, but I’m very happy with the final product. I give it a four star rating due to the fact that Netflix doesn’t offer audio description in all the languages it offers the series in.