Why Streaming Shows Are Designed to Keep You Half-Watching

"Not second-screen enough"

There’s a criticism I’ve heard floating around about original screenplays pitched to streaming giants: “Not second screen enough.” The implication is startling: the content isn’t designed to cut through whatever is on your TikTok feed or WhatsApp chat as you’re watching. In other words, it’s not attention-grabbing enough. At first glance, it seems logical—modern media competes with a barrage of distractions. But dig deeper, and the paradox becomes clear: the show also can’t demand so much focus that it exhausts the viewer. God forbid it becomes an intellectual activity.

This philosophy seems to drive the current trend in streaming content. Think ensemble casts where characters burst onto the screen like walking archetypes—their roles so predefined that you can already predict the end of their arc before it begins. Yet, they’re easy to watch while scrolling your phone. These stories aren’t designed to challenge you but to provide the comforting rhythm of entries and exits, with very little in the way of true change.

This approach isn’t new. Soap operas were conceived for similar reasons—cheap, easy-to-produce content aimed at stay-at-home mums, primarily as a vehicle for advertisements - namely, soap. Streaming services seem to have adopted this model, only the soaps now advertise the platform itself.

Where’s the Catharsis?

It’s here that I think Quentin Tarantino’s recent musings hit home. On a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, he remarked that streaming content often lacks big moments—the kind of cathartic, memorable scenes that stick in your brain long after the credits roll. He wasn’t talking about action set-pieces or spectacle but the rug-pull moments where everything you thought you knew about a character or story flips. Those moments make us feel. They widen what Robert McKee calls “the gap”—the tension between expectation and reality—before snapping it entirely. This is where emotional impact happens.

But these gaps are increasingly rare. Many shows avoid them altogether, preferring the safer path of flat narratives that plod predictably forward. Perhaps it’s fear of alienating audiences who might find such surprises disruptive. Or maybe the algorithms that guide content creation favour uniformity and reliability over risk.

The Opposite of Second Screen Content

Then, every so often, something appears that challenges this trend. My recommendation to you is The Devil’s Plan, a Korean reality game show that respects its audience more than anything else I’ve watched recently. The show pits intellectual heavyweights against each other in games so complex that it often takes 10 minutes just to explain the rules. Contestants enter game rooms armed with notepads, ready to compete in battles lasting hours, forming alliances, breaking them, and engaging in genuine human drama.

What I love about The Devil’s Plan is its confidence in its viewers. It assumes you’re paying attention, and it rewards you for it. Its storytelling is subtle, with layers of strategy and structure slowly revealing themselves across episodes. The contestants, while competitive, exhibit a level of cooperation and mutual respect that feels refreshing. In many ways, it’s the antithesis of the self-serving antics we’re used to seeing on reality TV. This is a gamble that your audience will stay engaged. And you know what? It works.

What Are We Really Hungry For?

The success of shows like The Devil’s Plan makes me wonder: are we starved for something that respects us as viewers? Something that trusts our attention spans and emotional intelligence? Maybe the problem isn’t that audiences can’t focus but that much of what’s on offer isn’t worth focusing on.

The second-screen phenomenon reflects a broader issue in content creation. Streaming platforms optimise for distraction, offering easily digestible fare that avoids discomfort or challenge. But the result is a diet of sameness, where nothing truly sticks.

Perhaps it’s time to embrace the gaps again—to take risks, to trust the audience to follow, and to rediscover the moments that make us pause the show just to process what we’ve seen. Isn’t that what storytelling is supposed to do?