Just like Game of Thrones before it, House of the Dragon has a darkness problem. We're not referring to the show's tone, though we could live with fewer gory childbirth deaths in season 2...no, it's about the action that's supposed to be playing out on screen.
The seventh episode was deemed so dimly lit by some that there were claims online about it being impossible to see what was going on. That's a complaint Game of Thrones faced on many occasions, particularly during its battle scenes in later seasons. While some reactions were a tad over the top, the following is a good example of where those criticisms stemmed from.
Yeah, you might need to turn your brightness up to figure out what's going on in that screenshot (we promise it's not just a black box).
Talking to Deadline (via SFFGazette.com) following this past Sunday's finale, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal defended the episode and suggested viewers just need to correctly calibrate their TVs.
Explaining that different distributors typically adjust what they're sent from studios, Condal believes those networks "compress the file differently," meaning what we're watching at home isn't necessarily what the team working on the HBO series saw in post.
"You’re also releasing it to tens of millions of different television sets that are all different technology, calibrated differently and set up differently in different viewing environments," Condal added. "It’s almost impossible to account for all those variables when you’re making the television show."
"I heard the note and we’re aware," he said of the criticisms. "But I will tell you that it looked phenomenal when we posted it and released it. And it looked great on my television, which has been professionally calibrated."
There are some interesting points here, but the biggest takeaway may be that the House of the Dragon team have taken on board what fans complained about. Not everyone has a "professionally calibrated" TV, so if the series hopes to keep its large, often record-breaking viewership, some changes will likely need to be made to avoid this problem in future.