tv_talk | TV Tuesday: What Is That?

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TV Tuesday: What Is That?

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

While we might agree or disagree as to which shows succeeded in 2024, the issue of lighting and colors in TV is one that has been an increasing source of debate. Which shows do you think do this well or poorly?

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As it happens, my recent rewatch of Veronica Mars showed that even though a good part of the show takes place during the night or in dimly lit places, it was still perfectly viewable. Given the timing of the series it makes me wonder if digital filming made a difference in how dark things got. Film in poor lighting looks grainy and poor quality.

Also regarding colors, I noticed that Neptune seemed to use more stained glass than anyplace else I've seen! Despite the fact that Mars Investigations couldn't afford fancy digs, it was quite an attractive office light-wise. It made me wonder if the show couldn't go too grey in its desire for a noir feel, and the stained glass lighting was a compromise.

Similarly I noticed that in the Neptune Grand hotel rooms there was backlighting through amber glass and there were other buildings that also used light through colored glass to produce a unique look for the show.

OOooh, I'd forgotten about this, but yes, the offices had beautiful stained glass windows. I never thought about how conscious a choice that was, but I totally follow your argument.

After a while I couldn't even hate-watch it, but I watched many more episodes of The Gilded Age than I would otherwise because they had enough [expletive deleted] lamps when nobody else did, and people wore beautiful and colorful clothes. I liked Succession, but got tired of all opulent possessions being either black or steel grey.

I didn't even watch one full episode of Millenium, because there was a scene set in a dark, shadowy....morgue. I'm not planning on redecorating in Morguecore, but one thing you can say for ME's offices is that they have more than one lightbulb per 1,000 square feet.

The beautiful views reminds me of comments made in the Destiny and Chicken podcast about Merlin. It echoed something I said when I first saw obsessive24's "Red" vid -- so many beautiful scenes but such awful, sloppy writing.

In Bull Durham, Nuke LaLoosh has a million-dollar arm and a five-cent brain, an approach that TPTB often use to budgeting for screenwriting.

Or for admins apparently who could keep track of previous episodes. They mentioned a deleted scene for the episode they were discussing where the entire thing was cut because they realized at a very late date that the characters were discussing something that one of them had never been informed of.

Ah, the novel "As I didn't know, Bob" tactic.

Some of the Reacher night shots could totally do better with more lighting. I mean it's a good action sequence show, and daytime and well-lit scenes are definitely good - but they could be better.

It's particularly painful to have action scenes in poor light -- so much time and money spent on something the audience can't really appreciate!

so much time and money spent on something the audience can't really appreciate!

I doubt that they deliberately film things so that it will look crappy when aired/streamed/whatever. However, they can't compensate for people with poorly calibrated TV settings, or who are watching on otherwise less than optimal devices, e.g. shitty laptops, etc. I remember all the fuss over that episode of Game of Thrones that everyone was saying was too dark and unwatchable. Part of the issue there was the degree of compression required by cable TV or something (can't recall the technical details). Again -- that's not something the peeps behind the show have any control over.

It's probably not the most egregious example, but we were constantly having to draw the curtains to watch Silo in the daytime, as it was too hard to see otherwise. Which most shows we don't need to do!

I watched Squid Game not long after and it was like, thank God, some colour!

Yes, a combination of dark scenes and reflective TVs are a problem. We've sometimes had to wait until night to avoid glare. It's been a while since I saw Silo but agree about the washed out colors.

I remember Supernatural did this a lot in early seasons. It was nice to have more color in later ones. (I daresay icon makers rejoiced!)

I haven't watched much western tv in recent years, but cdrama is full of opulent colors, pastel robes, the works. They really take care to light everything well.

That's why The Wind Blows from Longxi was such a standout with all its robes being in drab colors, and the overall color palette being grey. Definitely an interesting choice, and I heard both praise and annoyed comments about it. (I have not seen the show myself, except for fanvids and excerpts.)

I wonder if part of the washed out trend is due to people having better and larger TVs these days, whereas pre-2000 I think a lot of the tube TVs needed brighter color palettes to be seen well.

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TV Tuesday: What Is That?

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