I remember watching this (I was 10) and thinking something was wrong with the film or cameras. Does anyone get what I'm talking about? The whole look of the finished episodes didn't look like any other TV show that was on at the time.
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I think it was shot a bit on the dark side with lighting or filters to give the bus station a mood for itself. Just to give it a darker feel for the many serious (but not all) storylines to contrast with the humor. The 1st season was a classic for television. After that--------researchers, consultants, show fixers..........wrecked something that wasn't wrecked because they didn't give it time for the audience to find it. They even cut the mood setting theme song. They turned it into another lame, run of the mill boyfriend/girlfriend show with the female Ted McGinley: Alison LaPlaca: Great, funny, but with bad timing. They show up when a show is going down, although; Ted came in like gang busters on Married With Children, giving it new life and appeared in many classic MWC episodes. Back to your point. Don't think there was anything wrong with the film or cameras, they were just setting a mood. That's my opinion anyway. Wouldn't be the 1st time I was wrong.
"It's not the ups and downs that make life difficult, it's the jerks." Charles Chaplin
I came here to post the EXACT same thing. I was 18 when this show first aired, and I was long time fan of "Night Court". So like many fans of that show, I was very curious to see what John Larroquette was gonna do next. I found "the John Larroquette show" to be odd. Not funny, just odd. The lighting and production quality was perhaps the strangest thing I'd ever seen on TV. Everything looked "flat" with strangely even lighting. The mixing of the sound was strange too. It all seemed raw, unmediated, and unfinished, like there should be numbers running at the bottom of the screen. I'm glad someone else noticed this! All those years, I thought that maybe I was crazy! And thanks to the user who posted the wiki page. That info clears things up a bit.
shareThey recorded it on tape and then "processed" it to look like film. Go to the wikipedia entry for more info.
Info you ever see this a year after you asked the question.