Television has not changed all that much over the years, all things considered, but Netflix had the future of the next step in TV watching in their hands, and they let it slip through their fingers. Besides color, have there really been any major changes in television? I’m speaking about the medium itself.
Sure, acting has gotten more natural, cameras have gotten better, and stories have gotten deeper and maybe even stronger, but we still view TV the same way we did decades ago. We sit down in front of the screen, find what we want to watch, adjust the volume, and boom, we’re watching TV.
Compare that to movie viewing, with theaters leading the charge in different ways of viewing, with IMAX, 3D, and even meals delivered right to your seat. Video games are constantly changing how we experience them. So where are television’s viewing innovations? Well, Netflix nearly had one, then they ruined it.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt And Black Mirror’s Interactive Specials Were Great Ideas
When I was little, my grandparents had a bookshelf devoted to “Choose-Your-Own” adventure books. If you’ve never heard of them, they’re exactly what they sound like. Each book tells an individual story and every few pages, you, the reader, are given the option to choose where the story goes.
The character can go through the spooky door, or they can choose to keep walking down the hallway. Which decision you choose determines which page you turn to, which has more decisions, creating a labyrinth of stories that keep you coming back. It’s a fantastic idea and Netflix famously tried it out twice.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch in 2018 and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend in 2020, both movie specials based off Netflix TV shows, were interactive films. It was an inspired idea. If you have a streaming device, you have a remote, often a responsive, well-made one.
Netflix decided that remote control could be used like a video game controller and made interactive movies. Like in my grandparents’ books, you would be confronted with a choice, with the characters on screen frozen or waiting for your input. Each decision creates a new story branch.
You have to watch each movie multiple times in order to get every ending, but you don’t mind because you’re constantly seeing new things and learning new connections. It was an excellent idea, implemented easily into the movies, and we’ve basically never heard of it again.
The First Netflix Interactive Specials Should Have Focused More On The “Choose-Your-Own” Adventure Aspect
Bandersnatch and Kimmy vs the Reverend both have the same problem that ultimately cratered anyone’s interest in interactive films: they both treated the “choose-your-own” adventure conceit as a fun add-on to a story you know and love. That is absolutely the wrong way to go about it.
It’s the interactive aspects of the films that should have been front and center in the marketing, not the movies they were attached to. Most fans of Black Mirror and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt probably did not care at all about having a “choose-your-own” adventure version of the show they loved.
Instead, Netflix should have advertised the interactive aspect as the entire draw. This would have enticed people into trying out the movies and helped them adjust to the format. The story should have been simple, not meta, like Bandersnatch, and not beholden to four seasons of storytelling like Kimmy.
Imagine if Netflix simply announced they were producing an interactive movie where you are able to control the main character’s decisions. That alone would get people interested, they wouldn’t need to know much more. Netflix could keep the story simple to get people used to the interactive aspect.
A lot of those “choose-your-own” adventure books were simple. Someone enters a haunted house, a knight fights a dragon, a boy travels back in time, it does not need to be complicated. Make it a simple murder mystery with a handful of actors and one star, and you’ve got a cheap moneymaker that will actually be enjoyable.
Interactive TV Shows Should Be Much More Popular At This Point
Interactive TV should be so much more popular than it is now. Telltale Games produced the episodic graphic adventure video game series for The Walking Dead, and it was a massive hit. Those games are essentially interactive films, and the popularity of them could easily be replicated on actual TV shows.
The video game aspect of interactive TV shows and films might turn some people off at first glance, but it shouldn’t be hard to market that the format is a way to affect the story, not a way to create the story yourself like you do in video games.
Imagine an MCU TV show where you decide if Bucky chases after a shadowy villain from his past or stays with Yelena Belova to explore a remote military base. Image a Yellowstone spinoff where you decide who stays and who goes on the ranch. Then imagine doing this with famous stars.
Interactive films and TV shows dropped off soon after Netflix‘s stab at them a few years ago, but there’s still something there that other streamers need to look into if Netflix won’t. It’s time for streamers to make the risky choice in the “choose-your-own” adventure game of business.
