The choose your own adventure format is often fantastic, as fans of the ‘Give Yourself Goosebumps’ series of books will attest.
Black Mirror is also often fantastic, and you can just speak to Black Mirror fans to confirm that much, or look at the fact that the show was renewed for a fifth season by Netflix very early indeed or that it recently took home four Emmy Awards including Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or a Dramatic Special and Outstanding Television Movie - both for the same episode USS Callister.
Knowing how great both ‘choose your own adventure’ formats are and how great Black Mirror is it figures then that a combination of the two would also be great right?
We may well be about to find out.
Bloomberg reports that Netflix plans to give us a more ‘interactive’ episode of the show, in a shift from the last two seasons on the streaming service.
It will be one of a number of choose your own adventure-style experiments on Netflix shows, according to the publication, though it is expected to be the only one (of the initial selection) to be aimed at adult viewers.
The episode will sit within season five, which is yet to get an official release date, but it sounds like it will be different to the rest of the run.
If successful, there will surely be speculation over which other shows get the same treatment – we can certainly see clamour for an interactive Better Call Saul episode with choices based on which former Breaking Bad character to follow, for example.
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker revealed the first episode of season five was being filmed several months ago, though it is unclear whether or not this is the episode which will have choose your own adventure components.
Brooker has previously said a potential follow-up to the award-winning episode ‘San Junipero’ would need to be “in a completely different form” to the episode starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis, so perhaps this is what he had in mind.
Plenty of recent episodes have centred around apps or similar technology, with a version of the dating device from season four’s ‘Hang the DJ’ released online as a Valentine’s Day special.
There have already been elements of interactivity, clearly, so all that remains is to determine what else can be achieved in the field.
(Images: Netflix)
