'Bandersnatch' has as interesting and compelling premise for a TV movie as it creates an interactive experience for the viewer. It surprised me when the first option showed up; it's as if I didn't know what I should do so I let the show itself make the selection. Turns out that even though there are a number of finite selections one could make, the order in which they're made can result in an interminable loop. I can honestly say that if you happen to doze off while watching, it wouldn't make much difference because you'll come back on a scenario that you might have already seen but with a different outcome. As the protagonist, programmer Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead) is forced to confront the possibility that he's living multiple realities, that free will is an illusion, and that his fate is out of his own hands. You could say that with the film's many possibilities, the story itself goes everywhere and nowhere. In that respect it may be a frustrating experience for the average viewer, and since time is a precious commodity, I'm personally not inclined to go back to the picture to explore it's alternate options.
For fans of the Black Mirror series, writer Charlie Brooker treats the viewer to an Easter egg basket of references to early episodes of the show. I was able to pick up on three of them but there could have been more. The opener of the third season was titled 'Nosedive', the same name but with a different spelling for the computer game Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) was developing. Then there's the fourth season show called 'Metalhead', which appeared repeatedly in the story as a poster (again, with a different spelling) in Stefan's bedroom. And finally, there's the second episode of season three that most closely resembled this one called 'Playtest'. It deals with a character experiencing a virtual reality world, and the mastery of the writing effectively disorients the viewer into thinking that certain aspects of the story have concluded and then you're right back into the virtual reality world once again, never having left. It's the kind of stuff Black Mirror does best, that is, by exploring the advantages and disadvantages of potential advances in technology, and how some of them can go absolutely haywire.
For fans of the Black Mirror series, writer Charlie Brooker treats the viewer to an Easter egg basket of references to early episodes of the show. I was able to pick up on three of them but there could have been more. The opener of the third season was titled 'Nosedive', the same name but with a different spelling for the computer game Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) was developing. Then there's the fourth season show called 'Metalhead', which appeared repeatedly in the story as a poster (again, with a different spelling) in Stefan's bedroom. And finally, there's the second episode of season three that most closely resembled this one called 'Playtest'. It deals with a character experiencing a virtual reality world, and the mastery of the writing effectively disorients the viewer into thinking that certain aspects of the story have concluded and then you're right back into the virtual reality world once again, never having left. It's the kind of stuff Black Mirror does best, that is, by exploring the advantages and disadvantages of potential advances in technology, and how some of them can go absolutely haywire.