TALK TO A SERI­AL EYE with Jana Burbach (SE#2): PAR­AL­LEL ME

On May 5th, 2025, we wel­comed Jana Burbach, Seri­al Eyes alumna (SE#2) & the Exec­ut­ive Pro­du­cer Rain­er Mar­quass (Head of Devel­op­ment at Gaumont) to our online talk series TALK TO A SERI­AL EYE. We will dis­cuss their new ori­gin­al series PAR­AL­LEL ME, which was launched exclus­ively on Para­mount+ on April 26th. With BAD BANKS and TRIBES OF EUROPA already under her belt, Jana Burbach brings her sig­na­ture voice to a genre-defy­ing series that’s both wildly enter­tain­ing and deeply human. PAR­AL­LEL ME is her most per­son­al work yet—a cel­eb­ra­tion of chaos, choice, and start­ing over.

PAR­AL­LEL ME is a play­ful and heart­felt dram­edy that fol­lows Toni, a suc­cess­ful change man­ager whose life sud­denly falls apart. After a dis­astrous present­a­tion in Dubai and an ill-timed com­ment about female nipples, she gets fired on the spot. Back home in Ber­lin, things aren’t much bet­ter: her ex-boy­friend just became a fath­er, her best friend is mov­ing away, and her child­hood bed­room has been con­ver­ted into a sauna. On what might be the worst New Year’s Eve of her life, a mys­ter­i­ous fig­ure named Ariadne appears—claiming to be a “quarter-goddess”—and hands Toni a magic­al scarf that allows her to travel into altern­ate ver­sions of her own life. Skep­tic­al but with noth­ing left to lose, Toni pulls the thread—and finds her­self surf­ing in Bali, singing in Bangkok, law­yer­ing in Ber­lin, and occa­sion­ally wak­ing up next to total strangers. With each leap into a par­al­lel life, the ques­tion looms: will she find the one ver­sion that finally feels right before the scarf unravels completely?

Genre-Bend­ing Storytelling:
Pro­duced by Stu­dio Zen­t­ral for Para­mount+, PAR­AL­LEL ME is a smart, funny, and emo­tion­ally groun­ded series that blends comed­ic fantasy with relat­able life ques­tions. Dir­ec­ted by Kat­rin Gebbe, the series strikes a unique bal­ance between absurdity and introspection—asking what it really means to live a mean­ing­ful life in a world full of possibilities.

Watch the full ses­sion here:

Here is what you can expect from this talk: 

The Gen­es­is of Chaos: Devel­op­ment & Cre­at­ive Vis­ion: Jana will dis­cuss the ini­tial spark for PAR­AL­LEL ME – the core concept of a char­ac­ter nav­ig­at­ing wildly dif­fer­ent real­it­ies. She’ll detail how she built a groun­ded char­ac­ter arc across these altern­ate worlds, bal­an­cing comed­ic absurdity with emo­tion­al weight. This will include a dis­cus­sion of the ini­tial pitch and how she estab­lished the show’s unique tone.

Seri­al Eyes & Col­lab­or­at­ive Found­a­tion: Jana will openly dis­cuss the cru­cial role Seri­al Eyes played in her pre­par­a­tion. Spe­cific­ally, she’ll address the insights and guid­ance provided by Frank Spot­nitz– focus­ing on how this col­lab­or­a­tion shaped her approach to showrun­ning, includ­ing stra­tegic think­ing, audi­ence under­stand­ing, and the over­all cre­at­ive direction.

The Writers Room Sys­tem: A Col­lab­or­at­ive Approach: Jana will break down the writers room sys­tem she imple­men­ted – detail­ing the struc­ture, work­flow, and decision-mak­ing pro­cesses. She’ll share insights into its suc­cess (or chal­lenges!) dur­ing devel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion, and post-pro­duc­tion. This includes dis­cuss­ing how she fostered a col­lab­or­at­ive envir­on­ment, facil­it­ated brain­storm­ing, and man­aged cre­at­ive differences.

Build­ing a Team: Dir­ect­or Col­lab­or­a­tion: Jana will dis­cuss the pro­cess of assem­bling the dir­ect­ing team for PAR­AL­LEL ME – high­light­ing the import­ance of find­ing dir­ect­ors who could bring dis­tinct cre­at­ive vis­ions while work­ing togeth­er seam­lessly. She’ll share anec­dotes about how she fostered a strong team spir­it, ulti­mately enabling the three dir­ect­ors to bundle their cre­at­ive energy and deliv­er a cohes­ive vision.