Netflix is defined by choices, or more specifically our choices: it is what we choose to watch, refracted through the service’s myriad forms of data collection, that decides which shows get renewed, and which don’t. The rise of streaming saw Netflix at the forefront of a new boom in entertainment, and it was lauded as a place where creators could finally take “risks.” Recently though, it feels like we are facing the bitter afterglow of that boom—as the market continues to become more saturated, Netflix’s business model is consistently reaffirming its painfully risk-averse design. This is no longer a landscape defined by experimentation—perhaps it never was—but it is now transparently dominated by metrics and carefully calculated investments.
However, there is one area of innovation where Netflix has been quietly building a small monopoly, and that is interactive content. Whilst Black Mirror: Bandersnatch garnered significant attention upon its release in 2019, it did not usher in a new age of interactive television, but rather a slew of one-off kid’s show specials and trivia games. Type “interactive” into the Netflix search bar and you will be met with such offerings as Boss Baby: Get that Baby! or the deeply frustrating You vs Wild, a show which fundamentally fails to deliver on its premise by not allowing you to kill Bear Grylls. The current state of Netflix’s interactive content belies any real tact or ambition, it’s plainly all just for fun.
Then at the beginning of this year, the service finally dipped its toes back into the realm of interactivity with bank-heist caper, Kaleidoscope. The show’s primary hook was that, barring the finale, viewers could watch any of its color-coded episodes in whatever order they wanted. It sounded like a bold challenge to linear, serialized storytelling; it was proudly proclaimed that there were 40,320 ways in which viewers could experience its story, and yet… audiences quickly realized that none of this mattered if they were all equally hollow and inconsequential experiences, and it didn’t elevate the show to be any more than the sum of its average parts.
However, some critics went further in their critiques, arguing that the show’s use of interactivity wasn’t just gimmicky, but holistic proof of the limits of interactive storytelling. Bandersnatch received similar criticism from those who argued that no matter how successful an interactive show is, it will almost always be inferior to those told with traditional storytelling. There are many factors cited to back up this argument, but perhaps the most incisive was quoted by James Poniewozik in the New York Times, “you want the chef to prepare your dinner, you don’t want to have to cook the ingredients.” Whilst many of their points contain some merit, it’s disheartening to see the complex nuances of interactive storytelling written off so curtly, and it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre’s true complexity and potential.
The dinner analogy elucidates a fascinating question: could an interactive story ever be as good as one where its creators have full authorial control? Interactive fiction practically breaks every rule of great drama—characters are defined by the choices they make, not the ones the audience wants them to. If we could choose for characters like Tony Soprano or Walter White to not be constantly self-destructing with their choices, those shows would not be half as good. Thus, a basic assertion of the argument against interactive storytelling is that with every branching choice, such a story is inherently devalued in comparison to if there was just one. Whatever we may gain in “immersion,” we lose in dramatic integrity and thematic coherence.
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