Fiction series 'Black Mirror' gives power to the people

If response to "Bandersnatch" is enthusiastic, Netflix will take it as a strong signal that the public is ready for interactive movies and television shows, and a new age of storytelling will commence

Black Mirror, the speculative fiction series that encouraged people to be wary of new technology, is now hoping they will embrace it. The Netflix show released just one episode on Friday, a narrative titled “Bandersnatch” during which the viewer decides what will happen next.
 
It begins like this: Should the teenage video game whiz Stefan have Sugar Puffs or Frosties for breakfast? Soon the choices become more consequential. Will Stefan work at a game company, tell his therapist about his mother, take his meds? As so often on “Black Mirror,” reality is up for grabs.
 
Viewers are voting on more than who lives and dies on one program. If the response to “Bandersnatch” is enthusiastic, Netflix will take it as a strong signal that the public is ready for interactive movies and television shows, and a new age of storytelling will commence.

 
Not that the company needs much encouragement. It has already developed software to help organise stories that have endless permutations. It has perfected, or so it hopes, the technical ability to present these tales on multiple platforms around the world simultaneously. And it is calling for producers to submit interactive proposals in genres from horror to romantic comedy while hinting that it already has a few new shows in the works.
 
The idea behind the interactive push is simple: Viewers will care more if they are complicit.
 
“If bad things happen, you’ll feel even more crestfallen, because you were responsible,” said Todd Yellin, Netflix’s vice president for product. “If the character is victorious, you’ll feel even more uplifted because you made that choice.”
 
At a media event late last month at Netflix’s headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., the “Black Mirror” artistic team and Netflix executives previewed and discussed “Bandersnatch.” The mood was somewhat tentative. The track record of choose-your-own-adventure storytelling, from the “Dragon’s Lair” video arcade game in 1983 to “The Onyx Project,” a 2006 suspense story on DVD, to Steven Soderbergh’s “Mosaic,” a recent HBO mini-series that was also a phone app, falls short of overwhelming.
 
One problem is that audiences are not clamouring for interactivity. A long time ago, drama was a live, communal experience. Now it comes over all sorts of devices, but almost always is a one-way street. Netflix has an immense hurdle to overcome.
“We’ve learned to press ‘play,’ drop the remote and just lean on back and let the TV wash over us,” acknowledged Carla Engelbrecht, Netflix’s director of product innovation. “I’ve seen 2-year-olds do this.”
 
Netflix’s first interactive experiment was in 2017 with a cartoon called “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale.” It did well enough with kids to push the studio to go ahead with an adult show. “Black Mirror,” which takes a “what if?” attitude to technology loosely inspired by “The Twilight Zone,” was an obvious choice, but Charlie Brooker, the creator, and Annabel Jones, his fellow executive producer, were initially dubious.
 
Giving lots of options to the viewer while keeping the main character consistent “was a huge nut to crack,” Brooker said. It was a five-week shoot for about two and a half hours of script, a much longer time than a typical episode requires.

 
Even now, he is uncertain about what he has made.
 
“I think some people will judge it just on a narrative basis, some people will judge it as a game,” he said. “It’s not up to us. It’s down to them.”
 
Jones disagreed. “It wasn’t really designed as a game. It was designed as a cinematic experience.”
 
“With game-y elements,” Brooker persisted. “You are making decisions. You are actively guiding it.”
 
The original conceit of “Bandersnatch” was that it would be an interactive show about an interactive game. That’s the central hook that made Brooker laugh, which is his litmus test for “Black Mirror.” Then he asks himself, “How can I make this not funny?” and a new episode is conceived.

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