a brief rant

[ratcreature]

The aim to make your tv series appear "dark" or "edgy" or "gritty" or whatever does not mean that the screen has to be literally too dark to make out anything. I get that there are mood lighting choices, and atmosphere through colors and so on, but it completely defeats any kind of purpose if your viewer can't see or follow what's going on. It is not all that sinister if you have to squint and guess what is happening. Seriously, things can be dark and edgy even if there is a lightsource somewhere! (This was brought on by me trying to watch SGU, but really it applies to a lot of series.)

Comments

[ratcreature]

Yeah, true. Though I tend to find it worse on tv. At least with good lineart it can work in principle if much of a panel is black (admittedly less with just dark color rather than stark b/w that was intended for that from the beginning).

SGU was really extreme. A lot of the time most of the screen was nearly black with some dimly lit circle where you could barely make out the characters doing something. They really need to learn how to make things threatening or claustrophic or sinister or whatever they are trying to do, without plunging everything into total darkness. It's just full of fail in a visual medium if you can't see anything.