Clearly We Have An Early Lead.

Over the past year I've developed a casual interest. In how TV shows will cope with the shock of lockdown.

After all, here in lockdown. Watching TV is pretty much all we're allowed to do. Imagine how bad it will get when TV stops.

I'm coming to the conclusion that this competition may already have been won. By Australian women's prison drama; "Wentworth Prison."

Fans of; "Orange Is The New Black." Who have also taken the trouble to watch; "Deep Water." May be beginning to understand the rivalry.

Season 8 begins with the introduction of the Trans character; "Reb Keane." 

However, unlike other Trans characters. Such as; "Sophia Burset" or; "Paul Strickland." The Reb character has not undergone any reassignment/confirmation treatment.

So rather than simply taking the hashtag and forcing us to accept it. Wentworth Prison seemed to be attempting to look at the entire process. The Nuts n' Bolts of it. As it were.

It might just be me. However explaining the situation seems a much more effective way of combating ignorance and breeding tolerance. Than simply trying to club everyone into submission.

The show certainly seemed to set its stall out early.

With storylines about the challenges around sourcing the specific hormones. Through various illegal, prison networks. 

Along with the consultations with psychiatrists to obtain permission for more lawful options. Which began to touch on damaging topics such as aversion/correction therapy.

Then the pandemic hit.

The show is filmed in the Australian State of Victoria. Whose capital Melbourne was subjected to one of the World's strictest lockdowns.

Being a prison drama they had a convenient device to deal with this. They simply put the prison into lockdown.

However it was what they did while the prison was in lockdown that was interesting.

Obviously the prisoners were not happy about being confined to their cells 24 hours a day. So spent their time screaming out and banging on their cell doors in protest. Eventually leading to a riot.

I don't want to ruin the magic. However TV shows are rarely filmed in the way that they are shown.

Normally the dialogue track of the actors speaking is recorded. Then an audio track of the ambient or background noise is recorded seperately.

When they come to edit these together. The volume of the ambient track is normally lowered. So the dialogue track can be clearly heard over it.

In Season 8, Episode 8 "Goldfish Pt.2" the ambient track was set at the same or higher volume than the dialogue track. So the cacophony of the angry prisoners drowned out the speech.

I've heard. Well, seen written down. That this is a serious problem for hearing impaired people.

Hearing aids, even advanced digital ones work really as a mic/speaker combination. Which is not able to distinguish between speech and ambient sound in the same way the human ear can.

The sound team on Wentworth Prison obviously know precisely what they did. Allowing for extremely technical discussions about degrees of hearing impairment and possible technological solutions.

Which struck me as a very clever idea. In a difficult situation.

So unless someone does something better soon. I'll be forced to give them just all the Eurovisions.

Then where will we be.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6dEqqzMIu5Y (South Australia, The Pogues, Official Audio).