In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, the writer and director Justine Bateman spoke about how TV executives now want shows that are interesting enough to be, well, interesting, but not so detailed that the viewer couldn’t also doom scroll without missing any key plot lines.
“I’ve heard from showrunners who are given notes from the streamers that: ‘This isn’t second screen enough,’” she said. “Meaning, the viewer’s primary screen is their phone and the laptop and they don’t want anything on your show to distract them from their primary screen because if they get distracted, they might look up, be confused, and go turn it off. I heard somebody use this term before: they want a ‘visual muzak’.”
