Imagine that you’re at a crucial moment in the movie you’re watching: the main hero is trying to figure out what to do with the body of the guy he has just killed when there’s a knock on the door:
- It’s his friend A offering to help dispose of the body
- His friend A is horrified and calls the police
- His friend A is horrified so the protagonist kills him too
- It’s a delivery guy with the wrong address
Imagine you can choose whichever development you want and the movie branches off to four different endings. You are no longer a passive viewer, you get a choice and a say as to the fate of the protagonist. Be honest, how many times were you left frustrated by a character making a stupid choice? That’s a thing of the past - now you can go back and make the girl marry the guy you rooted for all along or have the bank robbers escape by a sewage tunnel instead of that stupid car which breaks down and they get caught.
These are just a few ideas that come to mind after watching the newest installment of Black Mirror - Bandersnatch. As far as the story goes, it’s not of the best episodes in the Black Mirror series, but Netflix just pulled off what might be a complete game changer for our television experiences.
The era of Interactive Television
Bandersnatch, which aired at the end of December is the story of a programmer trying to turn a cult book into a game. At the same time, Netflix just turned a movie into a game and you get to decide the plot twists. Anyone familiar with RPG games know that players are motivated to get all the endings. Depending on the choices you made while watching Bandersnatch, the protagonist, Stefan, could triumph with his game or utterly fail. There are nine different endings and I’m doing my best not to spoil it for you.
At the moment the question is - will Netflix move on to create other interactive shows. My guess is they’d be stupid not to. Just imagine the buzz generated by millions of subscribers talking about the endings they got and comparing experiences. Bandersnatch aired two weeks ago, yet a couple of hours ago Netflix sent Twitter up in flames with taunts of a secret ending - have you seen that?!
One of the main reasons, Netflix will probably work on this interactivity concept is quite obvious - regular television cannot compete with that!
If you look at it from a psychological point of view, would you like to be the moron that is stuck with the plot the director chose for him or would you prefer to be the one in charge?
Over the past few years, television has become all about choice. When I was a kid you had to plant yourself in front of the TV at the exact hour or miss the show entirely. In the era of Netflix, streaming or downloading, you can watch whatever you want, at whatever hour suits you best, on your laptop, your state of the art smartTV or even on your phone on your commute to work. Modern viewers no longer want to be told what to watch and when to watch. Who even buys a TV guide anymore?
Then there’s the younger generation, the children of the digital era. The kids raised on video and computer games will certainly love the gamification of their TV experience. Thinking long-term, their opinion matters more than that of the adult viewers of today.
As a matter of fact, Netflix first tested interactive television on children back in 2017 with Puss in Book and Buddy Thunderstruck. At certain points in the narrative, Netflix pauses and lets the children make their choice. As a parent who has wasted countless days watching crappy kids programs and bloody Mickey Mouse, I found Puss in Book quite good, so good I had to force myself to pause the video and start writing this post.
Another reason interactive television is such a brilliant idea is that it creates loyalty. Earlier in the post I said I watched Bandersnatch, yet I did not get to enjoy the full experience for the simple reason I don’t have Netflix. I only got a second-hand experience watching the choices some uploader made for me. Up to now I was never tempted to get Netflix, because getting hold of whatever series they have is quite easy. If there were more shows like Bandersnatch, you bet I’d pay to have the real deal, just because I wouldn’t want to be left out. Just tell me that season 5 of Black Mirror is going to be interactive and I’ll subscribe to Netflix within the next five minutes!
Illusion of choice
Ironically, Bandersnatch deals with the high cost of allowing the player too many choices, even more so when it comes to a movie. Just think how many extra scenes they’d need to script and film. The obvious solution, as exposed in the movie, is allowing the viewer a number of endings big enough to make him think he’s in charge.
Oddly enough, this is our fate as viewers - we are led to believe we have a choice when all we are doing is being sucked into the world of mind-numbing entertainment, more and more oblivious of the real world. What we really get is only a new shiny toy to experiment with.
One of the grave dangers posed by this new type of interactive television is we’re once again freely giving information about ourselves. The network would have all your data - all the choices you’ve made can be analyzed for all sorts of purposes, commercial or otherwise. If you’re more of a rebel or an anarchist, Netflix will know about it and so will various agencies interested in profiling. Who knows, one day it could be decided you have criminal tendencies based on the choices you make while watching a movie.
Bandersnatch meets Minority Report!
