Bandersnatch

On December 28th, Black Mirror rolled out their first interactive episode, Bandersnatch, which left many viewers intrigued and just a little bit frightened. While this is not Netflix’s first release of a choose your own adventure type show, Bandersnatch has gained the attention and excitement of many who believe this could be the future of entertainment. It’s the plot line and captivation of a TV

Credit: Netflix / Black Mirror

show with the freedom of a computer game and it still has the futuristic paranoia feeling of a Black Mirror episode.

Bandersnatch follows a young video game maker who has set out to create a game based on a book that his mother left him before she died when he was a child. The book is a choose your own adventure type novel and the protagonist, Stefan Butler, tries to follow the same type of format with his game. Stefan gets caught up with all the possibilities of the game and starts to lose sight of his purpose and reality. The episode offers the viewer many choices to make throughout the story that influence the possible endings. Little things like the music that you make the protagonist listen to influence the way that the story ends. This shows the audience that even in their own lives little things can change the entire course of their lives.

So why is Bandersnatch so captivating to the modern audience? People like choices; having a say in the way that things turn out and having control over other people’s decisions. Bandersnatch offered the audience a glimpse into an alternate reality and the feeling of being an overlord in Stefan Butlers universe.