
Netflix to let viewers pick how TV episodes and movies will end - mmaanniisshh
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/netflix-is-said-to-plan-choose-your-own-adventure-black-mirror
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spuz
I believe when Charlie Brooker first got on board with Netflix to produce the
third season of Black Mirror, he made a suggestion to introduce some kind of
interactive element to the show but Netflix decided it wasn't technically
possible to do what he wanted at the time. I can't remember where I read or
heard this but it got me thinking about what kind of innovation you could
bring to a traditional TV series when it is distributed via the internet.

For example you could show slightly different versions of the show to
different viewers, of you could subtly alter the show when viewed on second or
third viewing. Or the show could change depending on the time of year that you
watch it. This kind of breaking of the fourth wall and breaking of fiction
from reality could fit extremely well into a Black Mirror type of story. I'd
love to hear what others suggest.

As far as interactivity, and 'choose-your-own-adventure' style of story
telling I think that will probably get boring pretty quick. We already have
this kind of story telling with games such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls
and while many people view those games as innovative forms of cinematic games,
I would say they are pretty tedious and non-immersive forms of cinema.

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medmunds
> show slightly different versions of the show to different viewers

The 1985 movie _Clue_ was released with three different endings[1]. And if you
really wanted to see them all, you had to go to the movie at least three times
in different theaters.

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clue_(film)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clue_\(film\))

~~~
talmand
For anyone who hasn't seen it...

First, go watch it before the rumored Ryan Reynolds remake. It's a fun movie
and holds up fairly well.

Second, when released for home they rolled all three endings into the
storyline so you get to see all three.

Three, watch it again after the viewing the endings to see how all three
actually do work in the story. May require more than one additional viewing to
get it all, but worth it in my opinion.

Four, relatively safe for children and my kids love it.

~~~
ericlewis
Awesome, thank you.

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imgabe
This sounds awful. This is a problem I have with a lot of Netflix's content.
It's nobody's baby. There's no singular vision behind it where a person came
up with a story they want to tell. Instead it's algorithmically generated like
"Here's some things that popular things have in common, write a story around
these elements". That _can_ get something passable sometimes, but mostly not.

Most great art is the product of one mind at the most basic level. Of course
with something like a TV show or movie there are thousands of people involved,
but there has to a captain to the ship, so to speak. Otherwise it just floats
around aimlessly because multiple people can be pulling it in different
directions.

It's riskier, because if that person is bad, the whole thing is going to turn
out bad, but it's the only way to get something truly good.

~~~
izaidi
That's not how Netflix content is written. There are sometimes algorithm-
driven decisions on which projects to acquire and finance, but once they buy
something, the creators have full control to execute their vision -- much
moreso than with a conventional network or studio.

~~~
kough
None of the content that makes it to mass media -- film, tv, whatever -- is
the unique vision of a sole creator. People are foisting their fears about
this onto Netflix, and find evidence of "writing-by-data" in its content,
because they are looking for it. No one wants to pull down the curtain and
look this closely at the rest of the media we consume because it would ruin
the illusion that it's worth watching. Like most other media, video has lost
most of its cult value.

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saudioger
Ehhh, if there's a group of people who _shouldn 't_ decide how a show ends...
it would definitely be fans of that show.

~~~
daveFNbuck
They're talking about releasing an episode with multiple variants and you
choose which one you want to watch. Fans won't influence what gets released.

~~~
saudioger
My point still stands, I prefer the writer have to choose a singular ending.

~~~
daveFNbuck
I think multiple endings make a lot of sense for a show like Black Mirror,
where the existence of multiple endings could help drive home the point the
writer is trying to make.

It probably also makes for more engaging children's programming, where story
is less important than keeping the audience active and engaged.

~~~
the_af
Indeed, I think they would be entirely appropriate for the specific case of
Black Mirror -- and even more appropriate if they sort of suck, since Black
Mirror is all about the unintended and depressing consequences of the abuse of
technology.

For the general case of TV shows, I'm against multiple choice endings.

~~~
daveFNbuck
I'm against this in general too, but the current plan sounds good. I don't
think this is likely to expand beyond occasional specials, as it costs more
and makes binge and background watching more difficult.

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plg
This was a thing when I was in middle school, but for books

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)

They were all the rage

~~~
wmeredith
Would you consider any of these books good, beyond the novelty?

~~~
ionised
I liked the Fighting Fantasy ones by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.

~~~
Boulth
Sorcery books are especially good. The mobile adaptation by Inkle available on
Android and iPhone is also high quality. I never thought text game would
consume so much of my time! :)

~~~
ionised
I've been thinking of picking up Sorcery on Steam. I never managed to get
stuck into those books during their peak.

~~~
Boulth
Yep, me too. But the game format is I think more suited to this kind of
adventure. The rewind feature is almost like cheating but actually allows
exploring broader decision trees. I've finished all parts multiple times with
different paths and this was definitely one of most engaging experiences I've
had on mobile (in sick of casual games plague).

------
okmokmz
As the Pontiac Aztek has shown, design by committee is not necessarily an
effective approach and can lead to awful results due to the lack of a unified
vision or goal. I imagine this will end similarly

~~~
Brockenstein
A camel is a horse designed by committee.

~~~
iainmerrick
Well, good luck using a horse when the requirements really do call for a
camel.

------
clubm8
I worry this won't end well. Netflix already lets series run on too long.
Shows that start out good will cater not only to the long tail that sees them
through to the end, but a smaller segment who votes.

~~~
nolok
> Netflix already lets series run on too long

Says who ? I mean, you do realize their goal isn't and shouldn't be to make
the best content possible, but to make the content that the most people would
want to watch and be willing to keep their subscription active for ?

If they let their series run that long, it's because it makes sense for them.

Most people have a few thing we like where, when it turned to crap quality
wise, we're still following along because we love it too much to let go. How
many people have kept reading the Dune sequels when they were published
despite the clear fall of quality and lack of focus compared to the original
book ? It isn't different.

(not that I'm not answering with your two other phrases, with which I agree,
but to that one only)

~~~
bicubic
> goal isn't and shouldn't be to make the best content possible, but to make
> the content that the most people would want to watch and be willing to keep
> their subscription active for

That is dangerous due to second-order effects. Initially, this strategy will
work and be quite effective at maxing revenue. But over time, consumer
perception will shift to 'Netflix makes shows that run too long' just like GP
post demonstrated. This reduces the perceived value of netflix content and
makes consumers less likely to start watching future netflix content.

~~~
clubm8
Also, grandparent is assuming a bad season/sequel doesn't tarnish the
original.

For example, my perception of House of Cards has been diminished by the subpar
later seasons.

~~~
wild_preference
I don’t think they are assuming any more than you are, that your experience is
shared to the point where it matters.

The challenge in these discussions is how subjective this stuff is. If you
didn’t like the season, it “went on too long.” If you did, then it didn’t. The
volume of anecdotes in HN threads show how useless that information is.

We like to think we’re all art critics, but that’s not how people watch
television.

------
SCAQTony
Populism meets art? No, thank you. Group think and optional solutions should
have nothing to do with the telling of meaningful stories.

~~~
pawelmurias
Art? Did you even read the post title? It's netflix.

~~~
SCAQTony
Netflix has never won an Oscar but they have done pretty darn well at the
Emmys: 225 nominations , 43 wins — Acting: 6, Writing: 6.

------
nicklaf
Users all separately picking endings to their shows, so that they never
venture beyond what they _want_ to see? Sounds a bit like a Black Mirror
episode.

~~~
black6
Now I'm intrigued about the _meta_ -ness of the idea WRT Black Mirror...

------
avar
Focus group endings are a thing TV and movie producers have been doing for
decades. It's not surprising these new media companies are coming up with some
version of that which makes sense in the digital era. I'm only surprised that
it took so long.

~~~
beat
It doesn't even require focus groups. If you buy into Joseph Campbell's
monomyth, or the more modern idea of tropes, then telling the stories people
want and expect is so ingrained in our storytelling that it's hard to _not_ do
it.

That's what amazed me most about Breaking Bad... how effectively it undermined
our storytelling expectations.

------
criveros
Netflix has created some of the best TV shows I have watched in the past few
years.

Strangers things, Maniac, The End of the F __*ing World, Narcos, On my block,
Master of none, El Chapo, Ozark, Glow, Disenchanted, Black mirror, Dare Devil,
13 reasons why, Jessica Jones, The Punisher, A series of unfortunate events,
The OA, Orange is the new black

Those are just some of the ones I can recall at the moment.

Only other shows that I use popcorn time to watch are Game of thrones and
Homeland.

~~~
ec109685
Why not subscribe to showtime / hbo?

~~~
voltagex_
If you're not in the US/NL(?), you can't.

~~~
nielu
HBO Go works fine in Poland

------
charlus
A little further along, but the BBC R&D have been working on something in a
similar vein for a few years. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/visual-
perceptive-media](https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/visual-perceptive-media)

------
chooseaname
Ugh. Netflix, please don't jump the shark and do this. I want to watch what
_actual_ writers have come up with.

------
derekp7
As long as they do it sparingly, it may be ok. But going from the experience
of the between-seasons episode of Stretch Armstrong that one of the grandkids
likes to watch, I'd be really annoyed if they did that treatment to any of my
favorite shows.

First, when I sit down on the couch to watch TV, I want to relax and have the
entertainment fed to me. If I want to play a video game, I'd fire up the Atari
system. Really don't want to be jumping for the remote and make a decision
several times in the show, and keep track of all the plot lines so I can see
everything.

Now if you can set it to not prompt you, but randomize each pivot point, and /
or give each permutation a number that you can select at the beginning, then
it may be interesting to watch the episode multiple times to catch each
variation.

------
jerf
"The foray into choose-your-own-adventure programming represents a big bet on
a nascent form of entertainment known as interactive TV"

Err, no, it represents a big bet on the _really old_ form of entertainment
known as "interactive TV", which is older than a great deal of the HN denizens
reading this and replete with a history of failure despite multiple attempts.

The question is, will this be the iPad of interactive TV, the implementation
of a long-standing idea replete with failure that finally succeeds, or just
another in the long line of failure? If the people involved are unaware of the
history, the latter seems more likely, but I can't tell if those involved are
unaware or just the person writing this article.

"Interactive TV" as an idea isn't quite an instance of what I call the BOAC
fallacy [1], but it's a related idea. The short version of that idea is that
you can take a new technology and computerize it, and that it will be just
exactly like the old technology with all the same affordances and capabilities
and business structures, "But On A Computer!", instead of realizing that the
act of transferring the technology to a computer will cause profound, sweeping
changes. Interactive TV is like the stupidest, simplest idea of what adding
computers to video can produce; the same video system, the same production
mechanisms, the same delivery mechanisms, the same amount of control over the
audience, But Now It's Interactive! In the shallowest possible way. Literally;
in information theory terms audiences will be given single-digit bits worth of
control over the result, and ultimately I would expect the experiences to be
at least semi-optimized for the viewer still watching everything in the end,
which reduces the choices down to an ordering choice rather than a "real"
choice.

Instead, the technology that permitted interactive television permitted video
games, mobile apps that take interaction to a much higher level there as well,
YouTube and all accompanying experiences, Twitch and all accompanying
experiences, and so on, a rich ecosystem of options and opportunities that
aren't just "it's video, hooked up to some quick time events! Wow!" Dragon's
Lair is already a super-slick version of the "interactive TV" idea, and we
consider it an interesting historical curiosity of an ultimately failed
development line, not something content producers all strive to emulate.

Given the nature of Black Mirror, it's a decent guess they'll at least exploit
some artistic possibilities out of it, but in the end I doubt this will take
off. Not because it's necessarily a "bad" idea, but because the space is
already saturated with _better_ ideas that are already multiple generations
into their development cycle that will crowd it out, just as the newspaper web
experience is now fundamentally different than the paper experience.

(So much so that it's easy for young people today to not realize that the
original promise of "newspapers on the web" was very often painted not as a
modern hyperlinked site with comment sections, etc., but basically as
downloading a PDF (in modern terms) of a newspaper, formatted identically to
the modern newspaper, with people talking about how nice the experience would
be of clicking "continued on Page 8" to go to page 8 instead of having to fuss
with the pages. Particularly forward-thinking prognosticators might consider
the possibility of a Letters to the Editor page being updated on a better-
than-daily schedule, but still, nothing much like what we actually got. I'm
speaking of the general press here; the very technical people made better
predictions, but this idea was very much in general circulation.)

[1]: [http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916](http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916)

------
jobigoud
I read a lot of "book in which _you_ are the hero" (called "choose your own
adventure" I think in the US) in my early years.

I'm always surprised the niche for this type of work in so small and revolves
around the same themes and for a young audience. I think the fear of missing
out on the alternate stories might be a factor but nothing would prevent you
from reading all branches. Where are the "choose your own romance", the
multiverse science fiction, the time travel stories where you pick the changes
the hero does to the past, etc.

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tcgv
We had a 90s TV show in Brazil called "You decide"[1]. One hour-long
independent episodes with two pre-recorded endings. During the show people
voted in their prefered ending by phone. The one with more votes would be
displayed. The show was mildly popular, since I was a child back then I don't
remember why they dropped it from the schedule.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voc%C3%AA_Decide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voc%C3%AA_Decide)

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dwighttk
I remember seeing a audience decided show at the BSA Jamboree in 1997. I don't
remember anything about the content... I can't even recall if it was a video
or a live action play, I just remember voting and being willing to think there
was a chance the voting was rigged because one of the decisions went a
different way than I voted.

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krylon
The best part of a good story is when it genuinely surprises me, does
something I totally did not expect.

~~~
jobigoud
Plot twist: the options are actually swapped and when you choose one you get
the other ending.

~~~
krylon
Nothing beats a good plot twist. ;-) But if I can vote for it, it's not much
of a surprise, isn't it?

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alurpalz
"What do you think Linda?"

Reminds me of the scene from Fahrenheit 451.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxVhqtj83U8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxVhqtj83U8)

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black6
Don’t video games already fill the niche for interactive video-based
entertainment?

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tomjen3
That seems to miss the point: I want to be surprised by the endings, or relive
a great moment or quote, or I want to turn of my mind for a while -- these are
basically my reasons to Netflix.

This would remove both.

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postit
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voc%C3%AA_Decide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voc%C3%AA_Decide)
brazilians did that first.

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liftbigweights
So a TV version of RPGs? If it proves to be a success, I wonder if they'll
make the beginning and middle interactive as well? Then why watch TV when RPGs
are so much better?

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joemaller1
lol. I clicked through hoping this would be a way to disable autoplay and just
end a show with the credits then dump back to the menus. The current "here's
what's next" feels like force-feeding and I always dive for the remote to
disable the post-show stuff.

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onemoresoop
It will be a fun interesting mess. Imagine watchers getting completely
opposing messages from the show and not being able to discuss it coherently
unless they specify which version they watched. And who will watch all the
versions will be as bemused as the ones who never watched it. Open endedness
is a far easier solution imo.

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partiallypro
Didn't SyFy, or someone do something like this a few years ago with a show
that was message board driven? This also reminds me of the Quantum Break on
Xbox.

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mlthoughts2018
Will I be given an executive producer credit and residuals for my creative
input in the choice of the ending?

I’m not doing your job for you for free, Netflix. >:|

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andyidsinga
has anyone seen the end of every MacGruber snl skit?.

done. you're welcome netflix ;)

------
adamnemecek
This sounds like a bad idea. When consuming “art”, I generally care more about
crazy shit I couldn’t come up with rather than my ideas.

~~~
usrusr
Given that it's supposed to be a Black Mirror special, I fully expect that
there will not only be plenty of "crazy shit" in how they twist the user
choice into something entirely unexpected (while still adhering to the precise
wording of the choice option), but also that the episode topic itself will be
user choice and how it can go horribly wrong.

I'd see it primarily as a hype vehicle, not as a general indication of the
direction Netflix will take in the future. (If I'm mistaken I fully support
your argument)

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vlunkr
> It releases the same 25-minute sitcoms, hourlong documentaries and two-hour
> movies as other TV networks.

I actually don't think this is true. If you actually look at their original
programming they aren't constrained by the same things as traditional TV. They
aren't bound to specific episode lengths, or writing around commercial breaks,
or refreshing the viewer on what happened last week, etc. Those might not seem
like a big deal, but IMO they are more meaningful than a choose-your-own-
adventure gimmick, which will certainly not become mainstream.

~~~
dwighttk
I wish they would stop being constrained by making me push the "skip intro"
button

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FrancoisBosun
Can't read article because I am in violation of some kind of terms:

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Using Safari Version 11.1.2 (13605.3.8). I don't care enough to confirm I'm
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maybeiambatman
Are you trying to access it through company VPN? I get similar issues when I
do that from mine.

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FrancoisBosun
Ah, true. I use Encrypt.me on a public Wifi. Perfectly legitimate use, and I
get blocked. Oh well.

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gcb0
Netflix is dead. their content quality is already "daytime cable tv" quality.
and this proves they have no good product people anymore.

~~~
dimillian
Really? The only real contender to Netflix content is HBO. I have yet to find
a new relevant TV shows to watch which is not from Netflix or HBO.

~~~
scrollaway
USA Network used to have some pretty good stuff. Some of it turned very
repetitive (Burn Notice, Suits, ...) because they don't know when to end
series, but they did produce some really high quality series, especially if
you're willing to look past the repetitiveness.

I don't know where their quality is at, nowadays. HBO is just leagues ahead of
everything else.

