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While we were all winding down from Christmas, Charlie Brooker and the Black Mirror gang were getting ready to mess with our minds yet again. December 28th saw the release of the one-off interactive Netflix special ‘Bandersnatch’ to mixed reviews. But no one can deny it was an interesting experiment, combining elements of video games, choose your own adventure stories, and TV.
In this episode, we explore the history of ‘gamebooks’, the inspiration for Black Mirror’s latest terror-inducing episode. The ‘gamification’ of books was just the first step, as the blurring of the lines between different storytelling mediums continues.
But perhaps most importantly, what did we think of ‘Bandersnatch’? And who killed the father immediately? Who resisted the therapist’s attempts to discuss Stefan’s mother? And who had no qualms about sending Colin over the balcony to his death?
While Black Mirror is often excellent at representing women and tackling uncomfortable issues, this episode stands out for its utter lack of female voices. Some may argue that being an interactive story told from the perspective of a male, women’s voices were bound to be relegated to the sidelines, but we feel a lot more could have been done to give women a voice in this fascinating television experiment.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Ayn Rand
- Zork
- Pacman
- BTGS: Disposable characters
- War Games
- Clue
You were speculating in the show about applying the “choose your own” format to theatrical movies and I immediately flashed back to seeing “Kinoautomat” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinoautomat) which exactly the sort of thing you were imagining (except the choice was mediated by a live master of ceremonies taking the audience vote). The show premiered at the 1967 expo in Montreal, but I saw it the year after in Prague. Which is why it took me a little hunting to track it down, because the name of the experimental theater venue that had stuck in my 10-year-old’s memory was Laterna Magika (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magician%27s_Lantern), which was a different show altogether that I saw that year. (Mind you, it was scarcely the *most* memorable thing for a 10-year-old American to experience in Prague in 1968.)
My recollection of Kinoautomat is that it was necessarily clunky: there were only a few decision points and a fair amount of viewer disruption to stop and take the vote. But still…choose your own movie adventure by vote.