The Walking Deads Midseason Premiere Made The Same Mistake As Game Of Thrones

The Walking Dead season 10 returned with its midseason premiere, and many viewers noticed a problem reminiscent of Game of Thrones final season.

The Walking Dead has always been a tonally dark series, but now the zombie apocalypse seems to have borrowed Game of Thrones' sketchy lighting rigs. Picking up from the season 10 winter finale, The Walking Dead's return finds the core protagonist group trapped in a cave that houses Alpha's giant horde of undead. With Daryl, Carol, Aaron, Magna, Jerry and more all underground, the bulk of the midseason premiere charts the survivors' escape, navigating deep chasms, narrow passages, bitey zombies and stabby Whisperers on their path back to daylight. At least, we think that's what happened.

Game of Thrones' final season was a controversial and divisive one for many reasons. After many years of critical invulnerability, cracks began to show when the HBO series deviated entirely from George R.R. Martin's fantasy novels, and those cracks became deep fissures in the very final season. Among the various troubles Game of Thrones season 8 endured was the cinematography during the Battle of Winterfell. Taking place at night with only moon and flickering flame to illuminate the action, a great many viewers complained that the battle was so dimly lit, the events taking place on-screen were difficult to decipher.

Similar accusations are now being leveled at The Walking Dead following its cave sequences in this week's episode. The AMC series has always employed a dingy color palette to emphasize the apocalyptic setting, and cave scenes were never going to be among the brightest on the show. Nevertheless, the action in "Squeeze" is regularly hard to pick out, with only scant sources of light providing reprieve. Between these brief torch beam flashes, it's not easy to see which character is falling where, or where the cast are standing in relation to each other. Proving that the issue was only confined to the cave sequences, the post-escape fallout and Whisperer camp scenes were completely visible, with the familiar The Walking Dead hue.

On one hand, the darkness of the cave scenes aided the viewer in feeling the same claustrophobia and discomfort as the survivors in the show. A brightly-lit cave would not only feel unrealistic, but would also fail to inspire any sensation of threat within the audience. With that said, there's a fine line between being atmospheric with darkness and remembering that TV is a visual medium where viewers require a clear view of the action. In The Walking Dead's latest offering, the latter was definitely a lower priority, and many would've come out of the episode feeling confused at best, and bored at worst.

After the Game of Thrones debacle, the show's cinematographer spoke out, blaming modern devices and calibration settings for the episode's lack of visual clarity, although this was swiftly contradicted by others on social media. The Walking Dead's showrunner, Angela Kang, has responded by claiming color tests were conducted on the caves before filming and the visibility was deemed appropriate. While the backlash isn't as significant as that endured by Game of Thrones, enough fans have complained to warrant a rethink if future seasons call for minimally-lit moments. One thing all viewers can agree on, however, is that if any scene should've been too dark to see properly, it's the Alpha and Negan sex scene.