Netflix Is Working On A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Ep Of Black Mirror

Now, your Black Mirror episodes will put death, destruction and dystopia in your hands.

Bloomberg reported that Netflix is working on a suite of specials that will let viewers choose their own adventure. The streaming giant is yet to make any official announcement, but according to the insider Bloomberg received their information from, Netflix is aiming to release the first of these specials by the end of the year.

And it looks like one trial subject will be an episode in Black Mirror’s fifth season. The unique tech dystopia series moved to Netflix in 2015, when the company splashed out more than $40 million for the third season’s distribution rights. Each episode has a wholly different cast and storyline, and all episodes are tied by the same theme: exploring the effect modern technology has on us. Black Mirror’s fifth season is set for a December release.

Interactive fictional television hasn’t really been tried before. We’ve had plenty of choose-your-own-adventure novels, and in 2017 HBO released Mosaic, a murder mystery directed by Steven Soderbergh that came with a mobile app that enabled users to choose what happened next in the television drama.

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter last year that he was toying with the idea of an interactive storyline.

“We could keep one [storyline] in an infinite loop!” Brooker said, “You could do that on Netflix — make one a Groundhog Day that literally never stops. And disable the ‘back’ button for viewers.”

He continued:

“That’s something to think about. We did talk to some of the tech people about things we could do.”

Speaking to the publication this week, Brooker said: “We try to do things that are markedly different from what we’ve done before, so hopefully we’ve got that.”

And when asked about the rumours, Netflix fired back a statement:

“You have the ability to choose your own response from Netflix: This or this.”