Netflix’s 3 Body Problem made me feel incredibly stupid – what a relief
Last year, the actor Justine Bateman exposed what is reportedly an open secret among writers in the US television industry: streaming services want “visual Muzak” from their series, meaning the TV equivalent of the indistinct jingles that play while you’re waiting on a customer service hotline.
“This isn’t second-screen enough,” is the note showrunners have been given, Bateman claimed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “The viewer’s primary screen is their phone and the laptop – they don’t want anything on your [TV] show to distract them from their primary screen, because if they get distracted, they might look up, be confused, and go turn it off.”
Essentially, the idea is that streaming, rather than work of pristine quality. This may go some way to explaining the recent , but I digress.
