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Criminal Minds: Evolution Boss Addresses Viewer Complaints About Those (Literally) Dark Scenes
By Matt Webb Mitovich,
10 hours ago
Criminal Minds since its 2005 debut on CBS has regularly dealt with dark subject matter. ( Just ask Mandy Patinkin .) But the most recent season of the crime drama (and the second to stream on Paramount+), has been literally too dark in the eye of many viewers.
“You forgot the most important question about next season: will we finally be able to SEE wtf is going on??”
“I would have given the season an A [grade] but the [literal] darkness of each episode… made it so hard to see! I persevered but there were many times I threatened to leave.”
“I’d just really like to be able to see what is happening on the screen. Why is the cinematography so dark?”
Mind you, that bottom screenshot (of Paramount+ on a MacBook Pro) was manually brightened by yours truly, just to give it a fighting chance.
TVLine asked showrunner Messer if she was aware of the sometimes-inscrutably dark scenes from Season 17, and the short answer is that, yes, she is. But she only can theorize that the compression of the video file, in order to stream, is to blame, since “the show that we’re delivering [to Paramount+] is not dark.”
“You know, I have heard [about this issue]. You’re not the first to mention it,” Messer told TVLine. “And I’ve talked to my DP [director of photography] about it and even [people on] the technical side….
“The show that we’re delivering, that we’re all [seeing] in the mix stage and we’re all giving the thumbs-up to, is not dark, so I don’t know what’s happening,” she avowed.
Nor does she think that such scenes are always too dark, depending on where you’re streaming them.
“I know that when I watch it on my computer it’s darker, because it’s getting compressed,” Messer noted. But, “When I watch it on [TV] it’s brighter than it is on the soundstage — and it actually annoys me. I thought, ‘Oh, it’s my TV, maybe there’s some setting [to adjust]….’ But no, because I watch other things on Paramount+ or Apple TV and they’re moody, exactly what they should be.”
‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ on this writer’s Sony TV via Apple TV (in background) and running Paramount+ on a MacBook Pro (in foreground)
Vulture last November did a piece on TV becoming too dark to see , and one of the cinematographers they spoke to said that during this #PeakTV era, “There’ve been a lot of people making TV very fast…. Things are pre-produced, produced, and then distributed to postproduction, and then sent back to the streamers in a very short time span. All these factors lend themselves to these low light levels.”
That same expert noted that when it comes to rendering very dark scenes discernibly, “Certain TV brands are better than others,” while “each streamer … has a different compression or a different way of transmitting the image. It’s going to look different for everyone since there are so many variables.”
Criminal Minds: Evolution ‘s Messer had to wonder if the majority of the Season 17 grumbling was coming from an audience that largely streams the show on laptop computers versus an actual TV.
“Streaming [series] I think might get watched more on computers than on TV anymore,” the EP posited. “I know it’s dark on my computer but it’s not dark on my television. And I know what we’re delivering is not dark.”
TVLine has reached to Paramount+ for comment on the disparity in viewing experiences.
Criminal Minds viewers, where are you seeing it be too dark — only on laptop, or also on a proper TV?
Want scoop on Criminal Minds , or for any other TV show ? Email InsideLine@tvline.com , and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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