Netflix's new Black Mirror episode, Bandersnatch, is an interesting one. It is a choose-your-own-adventure episode about someone reading a choose-your-own-adventure novel, who then wants to make a choose-your-own-adventure video game, who then feels like he is not in control of his own actions. This episode could have been a mess, it could have failed in so many ways. It could have had little differences in any of the multiple endings, it could have had choices that do not affect the story in meaningful ways, and it could have just been a test demo for Netflix's future projects. However, while this is by no means an amazing episode, mostly due to a bland story and some of the aspects of choosing the choices not being as exciting, the gimmick of making decisions for the character in the episode can be really fun, especially when you're doing it with other people.
The story is somewhat basic at first. The protagonist, Stefan Butler, loves this book called the Bandersnatch; a choose-your-own-adventure novel. In loving this book so much, he uses his computer skills to make a video game based off of that novel. Then, the lines between reality and game seem to blur, as the character starts to lose control over his actions, as we the viewer start to take control of his actions.
The decision making aspect of this story is pretty easy to follow and comprehend. You have a ten-second timer and two decisions to make. You choose whichever one you want and then you are taken wherever the story takes you. Pretty simple stuff that Netflix de-briefs you right before starting the episode itself to get you ready for how to play. The episode's decisions start out simple. For example, the first decision you make, a seemingly pointless one at first, is choosing which cereal to eat for breakfast. As time passes however, the decisions will become grander and more relevant to which ending you get. Won't spoil anything here, but there are some interesting, outlandish and funny (in the Black Mirror dark humor sort of way) choices you make throughout the story. Every choice you make does matter in how the story progresses, and it can lead to some interesting and crazy outcomes.
The crazy story narratives are aided by great performances and visuals. Everyone, even the side characters your barely get to know or see, play their roles with such great dedication and enjoyment. With the different branching narratives, some of the characters personalities and personas change drastically throughout, and they all seem to mesh well with one another. All the acting was believable and everyone seemed to have fun in their roles.
In terms of visuals, Black Mirror has always boasted some really visually stunning episodes. San Junerpino and Nosedive being some of the highlights for me in terms of visuals. Bandersnatch, while not as good as those two previous episodes mentioned in terms of visuals, does have some pretty good visuals. There are some good long takes at times, some good use of CGI, and good use of colors that help add depth to each scene. Nothing amazing, but having good visuals for some Television Shows is something that should be mentioned.
Yeah, it is a pretty fun episode; however, while I have been praising it, there really is nothing that special once you get past the choose-your-own-adventure aspect. The story itself is pretty forgettable. Not a whole lot happens at first, and while it does go off the wall in some ways, it was just a very meh story. Nothing awful, nothing amazing. As with every Black Mirror episode, there is a theme or a commentary about technology and society that runs throughout the entire episode. In this episode, the theme is clearly about free-will. I say clearly because it is extremely on the nose. The occasional talk about free-will and determinism can be pretty hilarious. This episode is very self-referential, with characters asking questions like "why am I not in control of my actions?" to some characters having monologues about the idea of free-will and predestination. I chuckled a couple of times knowing that the writers knew that they should not take themselves too seriously. However, while it was funny, past being funny there was nothing else added with the themes. You will not have a discussion about whether or not humans have free will or what free will actually means. While that is fine, not every episode needs to have that a deep philosophical argument at the end, at times the talking and the monologues about free will can get a bit annoying. Once the joke wears off, there is really nothing else of substance when it comes to these discussions in the story.
However, outside of the bland story elements, some of the choosing elements of this episode is pretty mixed. Sometimes, based on what you choose, the episode will tell you to choose where you want to go back in terms of re-doing some of the choices you made. It's basically having someone telling "yeah you messed up so go fix it." That's fine, and maybe I just made dumb decisions, but to be repeatedly forced to do that was a bit annoying. It could have just kept going with whatever decision I made and either have that as an ending or, have more story parts to continue based on that decision. Sure, that might take forever to do, but it is still an annoyance.
In terms of the multiple endings, I got nearly all of them replaying some of the decisions over again and seeing where they would lead me. The novelty of choosing your decision does wear off after a while, and once it does, the overall package does as well. At a point, you really will not care about how the story ends. Sure, you will want to complete it to get all the endings, but that is pretty much it. It was more of an obligation for me to check off all the endings, rather than me being totally invested and wanting to find out where the different decisions will take me.
Overall, this was a fun episode. It was nothing amazing, but the element of choosing how the story plays out gives so much possibility for Netflix and other streaming channels to experiment more with telling a story. Now, I hope that this does not happen to every show out there; I do not want Fargo season 4 to have a choose-your-own-adventure episode. But, I feel that for some shows, episodic shows like Black Mirror, it can work decently. While there were other Netflix shows that have done this before, such as Netflix's Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale, none have gone this far into creating such a fun experience and a showcase of what can be done. That is exactly what this episode was; a fun experience being a showcase for what can be done for the future. Past that, however, in terms of story and even in terms of how far this could be taken, there really is nothing amazing about this episode. But it was very fun and something I will probably go back into with some friends or family just to see the different endings and choices.
Score: 7/10
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