-ˋˏ✧ANTONYMPH✧ˎˊ-

1: The lack of commitment to the b&w medium. From what I know, Nicolas Cage wanted the show to be filmed in black and white, but the company didn't think the youth would be interested in that, and had it filmed in color, just with a b&w option

While in theory, that's a good idea, I feel like it caused the b&w version (the one I watched) to come out very grey, with not much much contrast. If they'd committed to filming in b&w (technically polychrome or something) they could've painted the set and other stuff crazy colors to give it that contrast, but since it was filmed in color they couldn't do that. I feel like the studio lighting they used also contributes to this muddled look, with most shots being well lit all around, but still being too dark.

2: Lack of commitment to the time period. As with any show set in the past, you're gonna see historical inaccuracies. But I feel like this show made those issues worse. In the first ~3 episodes racism is not brought up like at all, even though one of our main characters is Robbie, a black man. I'm not saying the characters should've been shouting slurs at him, but I do think the lack of acknowledgement towards segregation came off as the show trying to be "colorblind". I don't think Robbie would've just been able to walk into a coffee shop owned by a white person. I think a moment where someone was like "hey, you shouldnt be here" and them Reilly defending him, would've sufficed. Race is acknowledged more in the second half of the season, luckily. Again, I'm not saying black people should be miserable in films set back then, I just think ignorance of the racism at the time comes off as, well ignorance of racism.

3: The Spider's webs are black instead of white! Why?? In a show like this, with the b&w medium, you need contrast! The show is all-over dark, so white webs would've contrasted that well! I haven't read the original comics, so maybe he has black webs in those, but I just think the simple choice to make his webs white would've been much more visually appealing.