I’m currently watching The King: Eternal Monarch, on Netflix, about a parallel universe where the Korean monarchy never fell. The King, of course, finds his way into our universe. I feel like this is what TV shows are supposed to look like, full screen, full color, bright reds, deep greens, and just an overall beautiful picture. This show is, however, from 2020.

I’ve written before about how so many modern shows are super widescreen, “cinemascope,” 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and color graded so dark you can barely see anything. (ahem… 1899) It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t want to look at that anymore. I completely understand this for big movies, which are meant to be seen in the cinema, but streaming television series are still television series. They are going to be viewed on a TV. Not everyone has a decked out home theatre with a 100” OLED screen boasting 1200 nits of brightness. (My iPad maxes out at 1600 nits but still.)

I’ve actually purged my Netflix watch list of so many of these super wide, super dark shows. Most of them, as far Korean dramas are concerned, came out in the last 2 or 3 years. It seems only China is still making full screen, full color dramas these days. That’s probably because Netflix, Disney and Apple have no foothold there. I realize that when I sit down to watch something, I really want to see a great picture. That’s inpiring, and makes me want to make stuff. When 2/3 of the screen is black bars, it’s more frustrating than inspiring.

This is probably just a phase. It’s happened before. I’ll watch full screen, full color shows for a while, get over it, and then enjoy some super widescreen content until I get tired of it again. Usually it’s a show like Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, something that I can’t pass up, that brings me back to watching widescreen content. It should noted, though, that while very wide, that show was not dark.