Hm, from my experience, hot-seat VR removes only visual contact between people on the couch and the person in VR. But there is still conversation, there is still commenting about what is going on and giving hints. Much more so, than when watching a show or a movie together with someone else - in which case it usually means passively watching, exchanging maybe at most one or two sentences along the way.

From the two, I'd say watching TV together is what is "barely more than passive consumption of content", VR feels more much active, because the people involved create the action, rather than just consume it.