Bandersnatch: The Netflix show everyone is talking about, but is it any good?


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Click on the tile for Bandersnatch on Netflix and it will tell you this movie-length episode of Black Mirror runs one hour and 30 minutes. Click play, and there will be no sign at all of the usual scroll bar that allows you to see how much time is left to run, only an option to go backwards or forwards in increments of 10 seconds. Click the forward button repeatedly while playing and you will eventually hit a point where even that 10-second leap is beyond you, because the episode has hit a juncture where you, as viewer, have to select which of the two narrative paths now open to you to take.



Replay





Bandersnatch – which takes its name from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, in which it signified a creature that lives on the other side of the mirror (or looking glass) – is an interactive story in which viewers use their remote control (or, in my case, PlayStation controller, which vibrates at every fork in the narrative) to end up at one of a number of endings (the precise number is a bit slippery; I think I’ve seen at least half a dozen).


There are also plenty of opportunities within the standard running time to backtrack and take a different path; sometimes the difference in outcome is minimal, sometimes it’s massive.


You can race through it all, according to some reports, in around 40 minutes, but frankly I can’t see why you’d want to. On the other hand, if you have three hours or so at your disposal you can do as I did, going back and starting it all again (fast-forwarding 10 seconds at a time, if you wish), taking the roads less travelled, and discovering a whole slew of other possible storylines, Easter eggs and variations on the theme.


Article source: http://watoday.com.au/world/jailed-china-critic-and-nobel-winner-liu-xiaobo-dies-20170713-gxaxlp.html

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