Netflix Is Working On A "Choose Your Own Adventure” Technology That Will Allow Viewers To Control What Happens In A Show

Daily Mail- Whether you love happy endings or a harsh blast of reality in TV dramas, you could soon be able to decide what you get. Netflix, the TV-streaming company behind hit shows such as The Crown and House Of Cards, is working on ways to give viewers control of key plot decisions. Some of the storylines will be simple and linear, like the Choose Your Own Adventure books many grew up with. For example, viewers might decide whether an inmate in the prison drama Orange Is The New Black joins a gang or not.

A source said: ‘We’re doing work on branch narratives so you are actually making choices as you watch. All the content will be there, and then people will have to get through it in different ways. ‘We’ll see how it plays out. It’s an experiment. We’ll see if it gets much success. For creators, it’s new territory.’ Actors would film numerous alternate plot segment in advance, letting viewers choose which route to take through the story.

Netflix will run a trial with choose-your-own-adventure shows for children later this year, based on an established character.

Did Netflix do it again or did Netflix do it again? First they murdered everyone in the old rental industry when they were slinging DVDs by mail. Then they became the leader in streaming content right as streaming was about to take off. Then they were able to become part of a phrase that subtly meant you were going to hook up, which can never hurt a company’s #brand. And now they bring back Choose Your Own Adventure books in digital form to go with their tremendous catalog of original shows. Take a goddamn bow for your meteoric rise to the top, Netflix.

Now I will admit that this news is bittersweet for me. I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books no matter how weird or bad the plot line was. The thought of being able to do that with Frank Underwood’s calculating ass or the Stranger Things gang is flat out awesome. And the mere thought of being able to make the Arrested Development maniacs dance like chickens at the drop of a hat makes me giddy.

But I know how my brain works. I will ruin these shows for myself if I am given too much power. In the books I used to cheat my way through it (keeping my fingers on the pages) so I didn’t end up stuck in a dungeon or eaten by a dragon. I will do a hell of a lot more to make sure Stephanie Tanner doesn’t end up on smack like Jodie Sweetin was. And as someone that STILL fast fowards past (very very old spoiler alert) Mufasa’s death and Harry Stamper’s demise, I probably won’t be able to handle mistakenly killing my favorite characters. And the shows will be worse for it too. If I had my choice in Game of Thrones, the entire Stark family would be breaking bread in Winterfell as Ned told stories to his grandchildren. Sure that sounds fun and all. But that show is boring as fuck. Same with movies, too. I just want a Jurassic Park where we go around and visit each dinosaur exhibit like it’s a zoo and nothing goes wrong. Is that really too much to ask? Probably so. Which is why I can’t be in the driver’s seat if/when Netflix changes the world yet again.