Bandersnatch- Netflix’s interactive film

I’m a little late to the party, but I have finally seen Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch!

I do enjoy free will, but I’ve never really been into “create your own adventure” books. I enjoy sitting back and reading or watching the story unfold.

That being said, Bandersnatch is pretty cool. I’ve only gone through it once but I loved that feeling of having power over a character. I liked getting to make his decisions for him, but also found it super stressful. What if I pick the wrong breakfast cereal? What if I jump off that roof? I panicked quite a bit.

I liked the story, it had the classic Black Mirror feel while standing on its own. It was also very relatable. Stefan, who wants to be a game designer, had a wonderful opportunity to work alongside one of his idols. Naturally, I picked the YES option to working with him. I was wrong and rightfully so. By choosing to work with the company, the game fails because it wasn’t Stefan’s creation anymore.

That wasn’t the last wrong decision I made… and this is where the show lost me a bit. It seemed like with every decision I made, the story had to backtrack and do things over. It also seemed like some of the decisions I made, were permanent even though we backtracked to start over. I wish real life worked like this. I have a few past decisions that I know I’d be better without.

All in all, I loved the concept and I did enjoy playing through it. I will play through it a few more times to really get a feel for it before I give an official opinion. That, and because there are dozens of endings. I’m not going to say it flopped in my mind, because I’ll never say that about anything, but I will call it a trial.