Television entertainment could enter a new era where you will be able to control the way your favourite shows shape and how they end. It is interactive television of a different kind where children and adults could exercise a variety of choices while watching programmes and be served what they want rather than watch what is dished out by producers.
Netflix could take the lead from HBO, its direct competitor, which has an interactive show running from early this year. According to a Bloomberg report, the video-streaming company plans to launch a project where the viewers get to suggest how they would want a particular TV series or even a movie should end and Netflix will have the producers make those modifications and then air the programme.
Season 5 of ‘Black Mirror’ could be one such programme where this interactive project will make a beginning on Netflix. Many of the new sci-fi kind of television programmes are being produced with a nice blend of video games with the routine storyline offering the customers a new mix and possibly a novel experience. Within the video games you get to choose the character you would want to be and who your opponent would be and so on.
While Netflix has not brought about any major changes in the structure and delivery of shows, it has definitely breathed fresh air by uploading many episodes of a series upfront and letting the viewers watch them all. In the children’s segment, the interactive choices are already being made available, in ‘Puss in Book’, for example. For the youth, the popular video game Minecraft is being released as an animated series made for television. It is being confirmed that there may be one or two more such video games being adapted and released but Netflix does not intend to produce or release any pure-play video games.
The production teams, however, appear to be a little concerned about the time consumed and the efforts required to be put in, especially in comparison to the way movies get made. This is as far as the scripts and scenarios in a typical television series.