hi this is my annual "there isn't a single show on tv right now that looks as crisp and aesthetically pleasing as regular shots from a pretty mid episode from the first season of an early 90s low-to-mid-budget network show" post

it was shot on film for low res tv, now digital 4k cameras and hi res screens make every details so visible it's exhausting to look at

I mean, from what I've heard, the show stood out in its cinematography for a tv show at the time? It even won a bunch of awards for it, so it's not exactly average in that way. But I agree with you in general, the bar has been dropped.

i wanna know what's going on with tv cinematography this past decade or so? everything looks like it's lit as flat as possible, shot in log and re-lit in post - it all looks smudgy, undefined and dull was watching S1 GoT the other day... i like HotD but GoT cinematography is leaps and bounds ahead?

I glazed over the language, but I saw some crisp images of Scully and enjoyed a shot of serotonin. She made skepticism look like a virtue and is tied for first with Ripley from aliens in my heart for favorite heroines

Ah yes, back when tv shows believed in sunlight.

I was watching "MAC And Me" — the 1988 E.T. knock-off made by Coca Cola & McDonalds — and I was blown away by how gorgeous some of the shots were. The lighting, the contrast between foreground and background, the colors (oh the colors!), the framing and staging, it was all so effective

I have literally this week begun to watch the XFiles for the first time as a millennial who somehow never saw it, and I KEEP SAYING THIS every episode. We used to have actual television!! Basic production values budgeted correctly! Location shooting! People who knew what they were doing!

i really wanna know too! i thought it was because of film v. digital format? i really love the flat-ish, low contrast look of 80s/90s films. idk tho (very limited knowledge) :0 i think digital looks cool af too if they use it right. also maybe the extremely hi-res quality these days is detrimental?

thought the same thing while watching Buffy. Often despite the limitations of the shows at that time, there are great shots and mood i just do not see in today's television

CGI makes people lazy.