Television today consists of a few bangers like Severance mixed with an awful lot of slop. Serialized or not, it's telling that the term Netflix coined for most of its output is "second-screen content", meaning stuff you have on in the background while you scroll your phone. I had been rewatching Max Headroom recently, and the difference it makes when you make a television show to be watched -- as most television was in the 80s and 90s -- vs. simply filling time, really struck me.