I saw an ad for “Beauty and the Beast” and thought it might be good. I tried to watch the first episode and it was all at night and you could barely see anything. I hate that look.
I almost dozed off and turned the channel about half way through.
Arrow, another new CW show, is good. Have you tried that one?
I think you can expect to see a lot of that. When the X-Files had a lot of dark scenes it was edgy and contributed to the plot. The shadows became a character of their own.
Nowadays, I think shows just do it because with the advent of HD TV, the beautiful people don't want us peons to realize that they're not really all that beautiful.