Trevor Noah has lashed out at the creators of House of the Dragon for making the Game of Thrones prequel show look ‘too dark’.
The latest episode, entitled Driftmark, received widespread praise for its depictions of ‘family spats’ and ‘taboo reunions’.
But fans were disappointed during the episode’s night-time sequences, which were shot during the day and then changed to look darker afterwards.
This editing technique, known as ‘day for night’, involves changing the brightness of footage shot during the day so that it resembles a much later hour.
After viewers complained about the scenes being too dark, the show’s creators responded by saying that it was an ‘intentional creative decision’.
Nonetheless, TV host and comedian Noah, 38, took issue with the reason, saying: ‘In my opinion, if your intentional creative decision is that people can’t see the TV show that you’re making, then you’re making a podcast.’
Speaking on The Daily Show on Comedy Central, he added: ‘I’m not Steven Spielberg or Barry Jenkins. I haven’t directed anything… But this is happening on every single show these days.’
‘Everything on TV is so dark. I can’t see anything. I don’t know why. Are they trying to make it grittier? Are they trying to make it look like a movie?’ he asked his audience.
Noah then joked that TV shows are only deciding to have such low lighting to make sure the audience doesn’t notice that their casts aren’t diverse enough.
He said: ‘Maybe they figure that if they make it dark enough then we can’t complain about the cast not being diverse?’
It’s not the first time an episode directed by Miguel Sapochnik has come in for criticism from the Game of Thrones fandom.
Game of Thrones episode The Long Night received backlash for its decision to opt for natural lighting when showing its big battle.
Noah was not alone in his complaints, with fans on social media also remarking that the beach scenes set at night were too dark.
Some fans complained of needing to ‘strain [their] eyes’ in order to properly see the scenes involving Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith).
Aemond Targaryen (Leo Ashton) claimed the dragon Vhagar as his own, but viewers were disappointed that they couldn’t see more of his triumphant moment.
‘Intentionality doesn’t really make it better [to make the episode darker]’, one viewer argued.
Watch House of the Dragon on Sky Atlantic and Now TV.
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