The seventh episode of the HBO series “House of the Dragon” is currently on view. The new episode was supposed to show Princess Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen under a romantic moonlight, but instead many viewers had to stare at an almost black screen for minutes. The reason: The scenes are edited in such a way that they can only be played on a 4K HDR OLED television in high-quality resolution.
“I love just staring at the screen”
Viewers who have already had this experience are currently upset about the technical faux pas on social media. One Twitter user ironically wrote: “I love TV! I love just staring at the screen and seeing all the things, whoo, it’s so much fun.” She also posted a screenshot of her screen, showing only the sparse silhouette of Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith).
i love tv! i love to look at it and see it and just look at that screen and see all the things on that screen hoo boy it’s so fun pic.twitter.com/OxelT3KLie
— Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) October 3, 2022
The fans speculated in the comments what could be the reason. But at the latest when another user published her – hardly comparable – view in the comments (see below), it became clear that the problem was with the end devices. Captioning the high-quality image, she angrily wrote, “I assume future shows will have a watermark that only appears on OLED screens complimenting people on their disposable income.”
everyone is correct that it look fineish on an OLED (our downstairs tv, unlike an older one up in my office of the iMac I often watch work stuff on). I assume future shows will have a watermark that only appears on OLED screens congratulating people for their disposable income pic.twitter.com/alm0gvzYrN
— Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) October 3, 2022
HBO speaks of a “conscious, creative decision”
Director Miguel Sapochnik is already known for incidents of this kind: in 2019, a “Game of Thrones” episode was shown under his direction, where you could hardly see the long night scenes. Now that HBO has received a violent shitstorm, the company itself has commented on the scenes. They tweeted in response to a fan complaint, “The dim lighting of this scene was a conscious, creative choice.”
Hey Stephen! We appreciate you reaching out about a night scene in House of the Dragon: Episode 7 appearing dark on your screen. The dimmed lighting of this scene was an intentional creative decision. Thanks! ^LL
— HBOMaxHelp (@HBOMaxHelp) October 3, 2022
In any case, fans have no choice but to wait for the next three out of ten episodes of the “Game of Thrones” prequel and hope for better lighting. The next episode will be released on Sky on October 10th.