Personally, I loved it. Loved reading those adventure books when I was a kid. Charlie Brooker is brill!
Still on my radar, as is the Black Mirror series in general. Minimal TV watching time continues to dog me. The interactive bit intrigues me, though, so I'll probably give it a whirl at some point.
I watched it and saw practically every ending within a two hour window. It was entertaining but I wasn’t really blown away by it. To be honest, I started to get a headache towards the end, watching the same dream sequence and dead-body troubles over and over. Part of the issue for me was that I managed to get the ‘good’ ending pretty quickly after I agreed to talk to the therapist about the mom so all further attempts were me being scolded to “try again” even though I already knew what choices to make.
Personally, I didn’t care for much of the fourth-wall and meta references as there wasn’t anywhere to go with them in the story and they all ran into bad endings or were the result of bad endings. It was a cleaver gimmick, I’ll give them that, and it made me exctied the first or second time I ran into it. By the tenth it was just an indication to me that I was on the wrong path or it was awknowldging/scolding me for being on a redo because I screwed up earlier.
One of my regular activities is to watch tech videos on YouTube, especially when it comes to how older technology worked. When I made it to the “secret ending” (not a secret ending really, just get the “good” ending and sit through the credits) I immediately recognized the weird noises as computer code as heard from a cassette data drive. I don’t have the necessary technology to analyze the audio inputs but fortunately other people have already posted the results. It takes you to a webpage where you can play the computer games from the film/episode so in that regard it reminded me quite a bit about the contest after the release of Ready Player One (the excellent book not the mediocre movie).
I think there is potential with this concept but I’m not holding my breath.
I can’t think of a good tagline so this will have to do. Suggest a better one for me?
I thought it was fantastic as a concept/gimmick and average as a stand-alone episode/story.
I definitely enjoyed it and spent 2-3 hours trying to get to all the endings. Then, I spent another hour researching it online afterward.
I would like to see maybe 1-2 more attempts at the choose-your-own-adventure type of visual storytelling, but I really hope it doesn't become a fad.
I would like to see this concept explored but instead of different outcomes the choices dictate whose perspective a story is seen from. It could even be like Roshomon where events look completely different depending on whose perspective is being used, leaving the audience to interpret what the ‘true’ nature and sequence of events were. I’m picturing something maybe in line with the accident investigation from Crocodile but without the cripplingly depressing story and ending.
I can’t think of a good tagline so this will have to do. Suggest a better one for me?
