Quentin was so deeply infuriating that I dropped out of The Magicians in a hurry. Considering what I've heard about the show's later questionable relationships with the concept of consent, I don't feel like I've missed out on much.Agree re: The Magicians TV show characters for sure. Especially Penny and Alice who irritated me a ton at first. Quentin though never ceased being fist-clenchingly annoying!
I quite like not really watching Leverage. It's ideal in the background, checking in and see where they are in the formula or like, sick daytime or laundry folding televisionLeverage is another nerd show that seems tailor made for me but whenever I watch it I find myself... just... thoroughly unimpressed by the whole production.
I think it's very genre-dependent, and particularly how trope-heavy shows are, for me. There are lots of shows, maybe the majority of shows, which I could not background-"watch" whilst playing a game or doing housework or easy work or w/e. Any show which is complex or has strong acting or writing, I probably wouldn't/couldn't. But say, police procedurals with a fairly specific format, like Law & Order and the sub-L&Os, I dunno if I could watch some of those not as background, because they're insufficiently attention-holding, their plots too obvious, and so on. But they're kinda fun as background stuff. Comedies can be the same way, or deeply unserious stuff like Supernatural. And a lot of things you've seen before can easily become background-watching too, though if they're good enough it can be distracting. Like, most of TNG which I've seen all of at least twice (many episodes more), I could background-watch very easily, but some episodes are good enough that you'd rather watch them.Man, I do NOT understand how people can have shows on in the background. I can do it with podcasts and YT videos about stuff, but if it is a narrative, I can't half pay attention.