By Caroline Jenkins, Opinions Editor

In an extremely clever attempt at a choose-your-own-adventure book, Netflix’s “Bandersnatch” has been trending worldwide; allowing its audience to interact directly with the hour and a half show, this installment of popular series, “Black Mirror,” is changing the way in which we think of TV.

Released on the Dec. 28, this unique show asks the reader to follow Stefan–a young computer programmer–on his day-to-day activities. As the viewer, you may choose what path he takes: picking what cereal he eats, what music he listens to, etc. The decisions the viewer makes, however, become more and more crucial to the story-line as the show continues, even meaning life and death for certain characters. The story could end as soon as 40 minutes in, yet the average viewing time is 90 minutes. With over a trillion different permutations, there are only five official endings to this story, most of them telling the reader to go back in order to try a different path.

It’s also worth noting that this episode is based in 1984, which I feel could be no coincidence, seeing as the novel “1984” written by George Orwell mainly focuses on a world watched over by “Big Brother,” giving the characters absolutely no free will. The main focus of the show is somewhat clever. Stefan at first, feels as if he has an abundance of decisions to make that he promptly decides on his own. This, however, is a false sense of reality and our protagonist soon realizes he is being controlled by some outside force. That force being the watcher, of course.

I am particularly fascinated by the freedom this show allows its audience to have. It’s almost liberating being able to make not only the large decisions, but the small ones as well. It’s definitely a step toward the future of watching, especially one based on a streaming site, such as Netflix. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had making each decision and in turn, how frustrated I was when that decision was not the right one and I was forced to go back and repeat my actions. It’s sort of exhilarating, that feeling of having to make a quick decision while the screen counts down, one that invokes a strange adrenaline rush. Although, once arriving at each ending, I soon began to realize each decision I made didn’t really matter after all. It was some false sense of free will. Because even if I chose to chop up the body instead of bury it, our protagonist would still end up in jail aimlessly scratching the wall as he watched the TV.

Essentially, I believe that “Bandersnatch” is very, for lack of a better word, cool. It is inventive and an innovative look into the future of not only TV, but the internet. If you didn’t like this Netflix show than quite frankly, I believe you are lying to yourself.

Senior Caroline Jenkins may be reached at jenkinsca0616@daretolearn.org.