Full motion, full emotion: Bandersnatch’s Emmys as a (literal) game changer

Enlarge / That's Netflix's Emmy award-winning original film, Bandersnatch, thank you very much. (credit: Netflix)

By being eligible for, and winning, this year's Emmy for Outstanding TV Movie and Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch effectively exists at a crossroads between television and interactive fiction. The Netflix-produced narrative adventure merges choice-based interaction with the high-production value of prestige TV to create something that resists easy definition, not least in established awarding bodies.

This isn't a first for the format, though its last wave was dormant for nearly two decades (and nowhere near the Emmy threshold). TV shows in the '80s tried involving viewers with toys as "interactive" add-ons. The CD-ROM era invited TV-grade drama to computers and game consoles.

In recent years, several smaller creators have resurrected the form, blurring the lines between straight live-action drama and video game. This August, two such works were released—Flavourworks' Erica and Sam Barlow's Telling Lies—to tell stories that go far beyond FMV (full motion video) games of the ‘90s and stretch the simple 'either-or' branching nature of Bandersnatch.

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