Netflix hasn’t exactly given a Christmas present beyond a massive archive of films and TV shows, but if you wanted something special, a belated gift of “Black Mirror” might just cut it.
Something unusual has hit Netflix this week, and it’s not unusual simply because it comes from the folks who made the twisted dystopian stories that make up “Black Mirror”.
No, it’s a little strange because it’s a bit like an interactive movie.
Arriving to Netflix accounts this week, it’s a standalone Black Mirror movie called “Bandersnatch”, and it’s different because you get control of how it works, and you decide the ending.
Taking the story of a programmer in the 80s turning a novel into a video game, “Bandersnatch” is more like a combination of both of those rather than merely just another Black Mirror episode. In fact, you might even call it like a “Choose Your Own Adventure”, because that’s what it is, allowing you to make the decisions to change the outcome of the movie.
It’s an interesting concept for a show made for adults, though it’s one that comes with a caveat: it doesn’t work on all devices.
Smart TVs running the latest version of the Netflix app will support it, as well game consoles, Android phones and tablets, as well as iPhones and iPads, but not much else.
Right now, if you watch Netflix through Apple TV, Black Mirror Bandersnatch will not work, and it won’t on Chromecast either. Instead, the interactive content goes away, with Netflix telling you that the interactive content doesn’t exist, and neither does the one that isn’t interactive, so you’ll need to switch to a supported device.
It is available now, though, so if you have something supported, you’ll be able to play Black Mirror’s latest right now.
