I recently got done watching a show on Netflix called "Dark," which I started right after "Stranger Things" had its disastrous season finale. Someone told me "Dark" was a "grown-up" Stranger Things, and after finishing it, I can't help but agree. "Dark" doesn't have extra-dimensional monsters or cosmic horrors, but it does take place in a small town where its residents are tasked with uncovering and solving a mystery that is beyond them.
The show first hit the platform in 2017, and it shows. Not because the show seems dated, but because the show treats the viewer like an adult who is here to watch a well-written show. Dark is a very complex story about time travel, time loops, interpersonal relationships, and how people are connected from one generation to the next. I'd say it's convoluted, but the show has zero fat on it, and every choice made is intentional and means something.
If you pick up your phone and start scrolling while you're watching the show, you will miss important information, and the show will cease making sense to you.
That's just not how shows and even many movies are made today. The difference between "Dark" and the last season of "Stranger Things" is night and day, and one of the biggest differences is the intention of the writing. Netflix created the finale of Stranger Things with the idea that you weren't really watching it. The creators of Dark wrote a show under the impression that adults with healthy cognitive abilities and attention spans longer than a grain of rice were viewing it.
The difference is that today's viewership is heavily distracted by their phones. Many of us are heavily addicted to our phones, thanks to social media platforms effectively creating dopamine delivery systems that mimic the same principles of casinos. In fact, there are major court cases against social media platforms happening right now over the accusation that these platforms are intentionally hooking children with addictive methods.
They assume you're not really watching the show with your full attention; you're splitting your attention while you're doomscrolling on your phone. So they created a writing style called "Second Screen Content" where the writing is dumbed down, and plots are explained to you by characters despite you having just witnessed what was going on yourself.
In a recent interview with Joe Rogan, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who recently created a movie for Netflix called "The Rip," openly talked about how Netflix pushed them to write in this style.
šæ Netflix deliberately dumbs down dialogue ā because viewers simply donāt follow the plot
ā NEXTA (@nexta_tv) January 17, 2026
Matt Damon talked about this on Joe Roganās podcast. According to him, Netflix explicitly asks writers to repeat key plot points multiple times in dialogue, so viewers who are glued toā¦ pic.twitter.com/0vO59hbjul
Entertainment companies are no longer making movies and shows with stories and deep themes anymore, at least not for the most part. They're assuming your attention span is split and that if they did try to fill a show with depth and tight writing, you'd give up on it and walk away because you refuse to give it your full attention. It's much safer to create something shallow that treats you like an idiot than risk you logging off.
For me, personally, the largest example of writing having devolved into nonsense is Star Trek. I'm going to show you two scenes.
The first is from the most recent Star Trek show, "Starfleet Academy," where the best of the best are supposed to go to become Starfleet officers.
Everything is a joke here. The doctor isn't real, though he somehow is; the cadets here are idiots of the highest order, so much so that one swallows their combadge, and the doctor hologram (who is somehow also real) acts as if this is a regular occurrence.
Don't get me wrong, Star Trek has always had its silly moments, but this scene is pretty much the tone of the entire show, and even the serious moments don't have the same weight and gravitas as older Star Trek. New Star Trek is almost a parody of itself, and it's so bad at parodying itself that even the parody of Star Trek, "The Orville," is a better Star Trek show than Star Trek.
Let me show you what I mean by giving you one of my favorite scenes from old Trek. It's short, but poignant, well-acted, and heavy.
If this scene were presented to Netflix's producers today, they'd have it rewritten so it's a bit less substantive.
Why?
Because the algorithm shows that a scene like this might scare viewers off because they missed why Kirk is talking about needing his pain and why it's important to you as a person, at least, if they kept it, it would've needed a recap as to how we've gotten to the moment of this speech.
If you feel like television is being made for idiots, it's because retention in this day and age is low, and Netflix, as well as other streaming services, are playing to the fact that you're only giving it half your attention.
