Dreaming of a black Christmas

Family viewing over the holiday was not the usual Yuletide fare. No 'White Christmas', 'It's a Wonderful Life' or 'The Sound of Music'; no this year we watched Black Mirror. For those who don't know it, it is a series aired on Netflix with a strong emphasis on horror, black comedy and general nastiness. Those of an older generation who are familiar with Roald Dahl's adult fiction such as Tales of the Unexpected will be on the right wavelength. For example, one episode involves a British Prime Minister (male, and played by Rory Kinnear no less) being forced to have sex with a pig on live TV to save a kidnapped princess. Not family viewing, you might say, but it depends on your family of course. But the main attraction currently is 'Bandersnatch', not in this case a mythical beast but an interactive film about gaming, interactive to the extent that you, the viewer (or viewers in our case) are able to choose between plot options, some cheerful choices like which main character should commit suicide or whether a gamer should kill his Dad or not. Overall this is far from the blackest of Black Mirror's offerings, more an East Enders of gaming types than Edgar Allan Poe; perhaps that is inevitable when you have to offer the guy with the remote some leeway to choose what happens on the screen. Did I enjoy it? Yes I did, the story was not great, but what is going to happen after you (or a younger member of your family) has made a choice is engaging, and the ability to nip back and make the other choice to see where that road leads is undoubtedly a come on. I felt Bandersnatch was maybe a 7 out of 10, good effort, could do better; but the potential for this interactive TV is enormous. Think of your favourite TV series, then imagine having the opportunity to control outcomes: who kills who, who gets off with whoever, old timers could change Dr Who back to a male, etc. - sounds like fun? Yes, I think so, and East Enders should be working on it right now: this could increase the viewing figures of the soaps many times over.