The future of entertainment: Interactive Television

in #television5 years ago (edited)

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!

Thanks for reading

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Great post! I have been hearing a lot of buzz surrounding that new interactive episode of Black Mirror. People have been telling me for quite some time that I need to actually watch the entire series, relating it to one of my favorite shows of all-time, The Twilight Zone. This could be the thing that makes me actually finally binge watch the entire series. I think it could have been amazing to have something like this for many past shows (especially TZ). I also like your warning of doom at the end of the post - where when given the tools to pry further into every person's life "THEY" will always do it and use it for some perceived better good. That in itself could be a great TV episode!

You don't know how lucky you are to have such a great series just waiting for you to binge on. I'm waiting for season 5 and, from what I've read, it's only a few episodes. It does have a lot in common with The Twilight Zone (loved that show, too), only it's focused more on the problems of our times, especially the impact that technology has on our lives.

Yep, I do a lot of Comic Cons, and I am currently writing my third book which is The Twilight Zone Trivia Book & Encyclopedia. So it leads to so many connecting the two series and asking if I have watched it yet. I have heard many descriptions of the show to this point, just a matter of actually sitting down and watching it.

Oh wow... that book will probably be pretty comprehensive then. Awesome.

Yes, it definitely will be. Estimating a little over 800 pages! Each episode will get 4 pages.

Whew that's a lot. Are you going to submit it to publishers or you will self-publish it? Does it need to be affiliated or something with the company or makers of the show or it's not important?

Self-published - we created our own publishing company when I wrote my first book (6-13 A Friday the 13th Movie Trivia Book). Since then I have published a Halloween movie trivia book, and we have also published a recipe book for a popular local orchard for their 50th anniversary. It would be a great boost for it to be affiliated with it, but unfortunately it wont be officially connected.

Oh that's cool.

I think that from Bandersnatch, a new category of interactive films can be developed, however, I see it difficult that this genre is going to grow a lot. Mainly, due to the difficulty of narrating an interactive story, not all the stories can be narrated in this way, on the other hand, for the decision making, the characters have to be superficial and with little defined motivations. I liked Bandersnatch, and I think that soon we will see more films like that, however, I do not think that this will be able to replace the conventional movies.

Cheers!

I do not think that this will be able to replace the conventional movies.

I hope not. Nothing compares to the happiness of watching a really good movie, losing yourself in a story instead of playing with your remote making choices...
On the other hand, there are movies I'm still traumatized by. I was thinking of one of my favorites Point Break (the original, obviously). I would so like to change the story a bit and have Bodhi live... I'd like to make Patrick Swayze live... but we don't have a magic remote for that.

Point Break, great movie. I must say that I liked the remake a bit, although it is not remotely comparable to the original.

I haven't watched it but I've been meaning to.
One workaround would be to have the character make inconsequential choices.
There's a knock at the door. Does the protagonist
A: Leave his can of Pepsi on the side table
B: Finish it and throw it in the bin.
The next scene is either shot with the Pepsi visible on the side table or not, and the rest of the show can continue with the plot unchanged.
So you can make a decision and feel like you've had some sort of input, but you don't actually have any real influence or responsibility.

Actually, there is one scene very early on when Stefan has to choose between to type of cereals and it doesn't make any difference - not much of a spoiler, there's much more to the movie.
However, I don't think they could pull that more than once, as the viewers would get irritated if none of their choices mattered.

If you spread the hollow choices out enough, they're fine with it. Once every four years works.


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Very interesting. I have not watched Bandersnatch yet, just had it downloaded (it's in my waiting list). I'll probably watch it sooner now.
I had heard similar interactive possibilities departing from the video games model.
At some point it was argued that movies as we know them today would make room for video games that would generate the plot and outcomes decided or achieved by the player/viewer.
That is an interesting possibility, but it may take some time to be a trend.

I think that we still want to watch a story for what it is. I listen to the story my mother has to tell, for instance and it would be weird if it changed very time someone decides that it should take a different direction. It may become an interesting story but it would not be the story that was intended to be told any more.
Having traditional storytelling and interactive option would make a nice complement, though.

Hmmm I've been reading about this for a bit now. If only the Philippine TV is also as popular as Netflix then we'd be known for this too. Lol. They did a text voting on a local show some years ago to decide what will happen to the story. I guess it's like the choose your own adventure books but on TV. Lol.

Maybe I should check on that show but am not gonna try Netflix so I'll just enjoy reading posts like yours to know more. :D

This is a very interesting concept. I do have an amazing TV at home which I don't use that much. I'm one of a few in my circle of friends who don't have Netflix yet (not even planning to). BUT you got my attention with this interactive TV experience.

I understand it seems to be fascinating that we feel like we have 'control' over what is going to happen. However how you mentioned this is just a trick. There are only choices that we can select from BUT we don't create any endings ourselves.

I didn't think about data issues so it's good that you brought it up to me. It's amazing how everything is controlled nowadays and every single move that we do is recorded somewhere and can be used anytime. It is a bit scary I must say.

I think it might get very popular but I wonder how far will it go and what impact it will have on people. As you said we can record everything and watch it anytime we want and now we get to believe that we have the power to decide how the movie will develop. I wonder if people won't be doomed by that.. don't know..

Thank you for sharing! It made me think about things that I usually don't spend too much time on :)

It's something which i have been meaning to watch since i saw it on Netflix. I will definitely get around to it sometime soon. If it's done right it could be the game changer that you are talking about.

This idea is Amazing!!!
😊👍
Steem on!!!

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