At Vulture, Savannah Salazar writes about tv series’ recent murkiness. “Aside from ‘Why’s everything so expensive?’ the biggest complaint of the streaming era may be ‘Why’s everything so dark?’ The budgets of television shows have skyrocketed in recent years, so why is it often such a struggle to watch them on most people’s screens? It turns out that a number of factors — from the artistic choices (whether they pay off or not) of film and TV makers to the varying technology used to watch their work at home — make it hard to pinpoint exactly why certain scenes don’t always look clear. To better understand this trend, and to drum up some solutions you can actually use, Vulture spoke with four cinematographers whose projects like Five Nights at Freddy’s and House of the Dragon spend long stretches in the dark. They explained why scenes shot in low light can sometimes look so bad that correcting a too-dark screen isn’t always intuitive. Fortunately, they have some tips for that because, like you, they go home for the holidays and adjust their family’s TV settings too.”

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