For me it depends on intensity. For endurance rides I can watch anything, movies, youtube etc. For higher intensity it has to be be bike racing. I’ve found my go to for indoor VO2 max is cyclocross races - seems appropriate 
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I’m exactly like this. If I try to watch anything that requires concentration during interval type sessions then I can’t remember much of what happened afterwards…which means that I might as well have not watched it. I used to think it was because I ride rollers which takes a bit more concentration, but I’ve since realized that when I go into pain tolerance mode I am solely focused on maintaining composure.
For this reason I save Huberman Labs podcasts for my endurance/recovery rides because I want to retain this info. If you haven’t checked him out, you are missing out on easy life and fitness hacks. For the interval rides I watch a mixture of motivational videos, watchmojo top 10 lists, and short comedy/satire sketches because it doesn’t matter if remember this kind of stuff.
Zwift with music for anything above Zone 2 or a podcast. My favorites are THE DRIVE with Peter Atilla and EVOQ cycling. For music, electronica.
To each their own on this topic for sure. I cannot stomach watching non-cycling content for anything other than super recovery rides. It just makes it worse for me.
For cycling, I have 2 main sources today - Peacock for TdF, Vuelta, and random events. YouTube for crits/road races and TerryB AlleyCat NYC fixie foolishness. The latter is high adrenaline awesomeness in my old city, so I recognize the sites. Riding between busses, never stopping at red lights. Poor judgement? Sure. Gripping? Absolutely! He also goes to other great cities - MX City, Moscow, Japan, and his recent Paris one were all amazing! Oh, and SAFA - he fits into a similar vibe!
In any of these cases most of the time I also have music going and watching on mute - for races I am invested in I may switch audio to the TV during recoveries to check in.
Movies are never the right length, rarely are they too long so you end up fiddling about trying to get something else to play during a workout when it ends.
The other thing is in a movie if you miss something it might not be shown again, so you are lost and need to rewind.
For me any tv series with 4+ seasons I can get into works best, can hop on and hit play pick up where I left off. With netflix they just auto play the next. I can just pause when I’m done for the day. If it is a hard interval and you miss something in a TV show it always seems easier to figure out what you might have missed and don’t need to rewind. Currently watching Prison Break, before that it was In the Dark, and before that Shameless, which I actually need to finish, just lost interest for reasons I won’t list so there are no spoilers.
Trainer rides are also my only TV time right now.
On a 2+ hour weekend endurance ride I might throw a movie on instead, try to go longer than the ride and I’m less time crunched to just finish it while cooling off.
Podcasts have never worked for me during a workout and music on the trainer isn’t what I need.
I do this too. Other than sports, I don’t watch tv off the bike, so I use it as a motivation to get on the trainer.
I know people like bike racing on the trainer, but I find it far too dull to get me through tough workouts. It’s good for stuff like 30/30’s where you just look at the TV for a few seconds at a time though.
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Worst thing to watch is good comedy - you might think long 120% intervals are hard to get through, but it’s literally impossible to keep the pedals turning even on a recovery ride when you’re belly-laughing.
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You pls post a link to this playlist if you don’t mind?
I watch movies I know well on mute with the subtitles on and music blasting. The Creed movies, Top Gun Maverick, Bourne Movies, James Bond, anything with long set piece, easy stories and good action. I can’t follow a story on the bike, I can’t deal with a real lull, I just want to look up, see something distracting and familiar.
The only downside is it feels like it takes longer to pick the movie then it does to ride them damn ride!
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I guess I’m a bit unusual, no movies, no TV, no music, no podcasts.
I’ve been known to turn off the lights in the basement and just ride in silence for three hours.
I find all of those things distracting and I’m just comfortable focusing on my riding.
I’m just going to way Wow. You win the zen master award of the day.
I’m almost embarrassed to say that I’m going through Batwoman. It’s a hokey, low rated DC series where the main actor dropped out after the first season because she didn’t want to film at night all the time. But it’s fun enough and easy to follow while riding.
And, they straped Batwoman to a table saw with a giant blade which seemed like a nod to the 1960s Batman TV show.
The interesting thing for me is that my entertainment pickiness is inversely proportional to my fitness. The “worse” my fitness is for a given workout, the harder it is for me to pick something to watch that I will be able to get through during the workout.
My general preference goes like this:
- Workout with Sweet Spot intervals and over: World Tour cycling races + music or “mindless” past paced action movies (e.g., Bourne series, Equalizer series, etc.)
- Endurance rides / rides with tempo intervals: if I’m feeling ok to good, then pretty much any TV / movie works that isn’t “horrible”. E.g., anything from Endeavor (Amazon Prime link), Safe House, NCIS
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TV shows. There’s a lot of stupid TV that becomes a lot better when your legs are using up all the oxygen.
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Define “long indoor”…
I should be advertising Grace series 4 as my daughter is in the first episode #humblebrag
But as I’m watching the Rings of Power, I think the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies would give you half a dozen pretty long indoor rides.
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It is always so personal but generally, this is what I do.
- On the big screen TV I run bike races of one kind or another (often without audio). Or, indoor track races, XC races, etc. Sometimes movies or series.
- TR on the phone or iPad.
- Music on phone for hard efforts.
That’s about it. Three screens for options and usually something on all 3 simultaneously.
I listen to Podcasts,Brodie Sharpe/,The RealScience of sport(Ross Tucker)/,The Journey on Podcast(Warwick Schiller) are 3 examples
Youtube, Crime documentaries, The Vegan Cyclist, TR videos, Keep Smiling Adventures(bikepacking) , Kyle hates hiking (Backpacking)
Sport , Cyclo Cross racing, Mtb xco world cup series ,Road racing, Eventing, Showjumping ,Dressage.
I’ve started trying out audiobooks. I have such a long list to get through. Thinking in Bets atm.
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+10! Some days nothing seemed to work. 
Watching cycling videos while cycling? Does that work?
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I’m not vouching for any of these being good, but Warner Brothers just put a lot of movies - full length, ad-free - on Youtube
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Every season of The Expanse. Was streamable on Amazon Prime. Made the hours fly by.
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