Charlie Brooker's high-profile experiment in interactive TV, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, is disappearing from Netflix on May 12. Experience it while you still can.
Back when Black Mirror: Bandersnatch premiered in December 2018, there was some excitement about whether interactive TV was going to be the new thing. Netflix had already produced a couple of shows in a format where viewers could choose to follow different branches at various points in the narrative, leading to a 'choose your own adventure' type of experience. And Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones' much lauded Black Mirror series was an ideal vehicle to explore the edges of the format wrapped up in a satirical delivery.
The company even had to develop its own software, Branch Manager, to help write non-linear scripts. Black Mirror Bandersnatch: where will it all lead? we asked in the week after it was broadcast. Nowhere much seems to be the answer, as the last two interactive works hosted on the Netflix servers, Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, are disappearing from the service on May 12. That means you only have two days to journey back into 1980s Britain, try and reach all five Bandersnatch endings, and along the way uncover as many of the Easter Eggs Brooker and his team hid in the interlocking branches of the narrative as possible.
Luckily there are huge amounts of internet resources and flow charts to help you.
Netflix isn't commentating on why the programme is finally being pulled from the servers after a five-year run. Partly because no-one is streaming it anymore (though there's bound to be a spike over this weekend), but more likely because it's in the middle of rolling out a new User Interface (with mixed reviews so far) and interactivity just isn't a part of that.
As What's on Netflix, which broke the story writes, the streamer has now been slowly phasing out its interactive specials, which it officially discontinued in mid-2023, with a focus shifting to mobile and cloud gaming. All but four Netflix Original interactive specials were removed in late 2024, with Ranveer vs Wild with Bear Grylls and You vs. Wild removed in January of this year.
These have been re-released in linear versions and perhaps the same will happen with Bandersnatch. But while rewatching it is fun, you can't help feeling that it's a bit of a clunky experience nowadays, especially when measured up against the massive amounts of content a game like Baldur's Gate 3, to pick just one, can throw at the same sort of experience.
So, enjoy it while you can, and for the moment file interactive TV into the same drawer as Stereo 3D, VR broadcasting, and more. At least no one is left with a cupboard full of glasses and headsets this time round...