On December 28th, the famous Netflix show 'Black Mirror' released an hour and 30-minute long holiday special episode called Bandersnatch.
The episode revolved around the main character, Stefan Butler, wanting to create a game based off the book Bandersnatch, where you get to choose your own path and get your own ending to the story. The game he was creating was the same way, choosing your own path, and on top of that, the episode was the same way too.
Yep, you heard me, you got to choose just how the episode played out, ranging from choosing what cereal Stefan ate for breakfast to choosing if Stefan would kill his father or walk away from the situation. (There is context here, he didn't just want to kill his father for no reason).
The episode can last you from an hour to two hours, depending on the choices you make, but trust me, you'll be way too involved in the show to notice how much time you spend watching it.
I only started to get into watching Black Mirror in the past month, and believe me when I say I wish I found this show sooner. The show offers futuristic ideas that you never would've thought of, and every single episode boggles my mind, including this one.
There was a segment in the episode where Stefan actually realizes he's being controlled by someone, the watcher, and addresses them directly to give them a sign. This was so interesting to me and gave such a cool way to interact with the audience watching. You then get a chance to choose Netflix or a symbol that represented the author of the book Bandersnatch. (If you watched it, you know.) I had the opportunity to choose both, and when you select Netflix, it's so exciting to see how the characters that are based in the 1980's try to understand this streaming device from the 21st century.
It felt like I was right there in the story, it's interesting just how interactive they made this episode. It's absolutely genius in my opinion.
I don't want to give too much away, but I seriously recommend watching this episode for yourself. It stresses you out to no end because you always want the best for the main character (he's very likable which is a plus), but sometimes you get two hard decisions that will only have negative consequences. This is something I've never seen before, and it was intriguing to know that I had a say in what happened throughout the episode.
Netflix really impressed us all with this one.
