10 Things Everyone Hates About Modern TV
3. Shows Are LITERALLY Too Dark
No, we're not talking about subject matter here, but rather the literal darkness of the damn visuals.
One of the most complained-about aspects of modern TV is the tendency for scenes to have lower-key lighting and darker colour grading in order to evoke a more downcast mood.
This came to an infamous head in Game of Thrones' season eight episode "The Long Night," where critics and audiences alike complained that the dim lighting made it difficult to see what was going on.
Now to be completely fair, a lot of people simply don't have their TVs calibrated correctly, and poor HDR implementation can also create huge colour issues on some TVs, but that doesn't mean there isn't an industry issue worth addressing here.
The likes of The Walking Dead, The Mandalorian, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Ozark have similarly been criticised for their dark aesthetics, such that anyone not watching in a pitch black room with the curtains closed might have an unsatisfactory viewing experience.
As with the sound mixing issue in films, it ultimately comes down to the fact that TV shows are graded and edited in extremely sophisticated post-production facilities, but of course your average viewer has a vastly inferior system to that, which creatives often fail to take into account.