We would be remiss if we didn’t pay homage to sci-fi TV series Black Mirror, which has explored our changing relationship with technology ad infinitum. With the release of the episode Bandersnatch — the show’s foray into interactive film — we’ve reached a new level of meta. Two questions present themselves immediately: Does Bandersnatch represent an irrevocable slide into a future of interactive TV? And is this something we would even want?

Viewer or voyeur? Participant or puppet master? As Kathryn VanArendonk writes for Vulture, what distinguishes Bandersnatch from previous explorations in the interactive genre “is its clean integration of technology and storytelling.” It is “a hybridization of ‘choose your own adventure’ novels, video-game logic, and TV, with the technological benefits of a streaming platform to make instantaneous, completely seamless switching from one decision point to another.” The premise is multilayered in a way that is typical of Black Mirror — a program already known for posing uncomfortable questions about choice and intentionality, the ethics of media consumption, and how we are implicated in the commodification of human beings and social values for entertainment purposes.

Where to now? Even leaving aside the thorny issue of how Netflix may be using the data it collects when we take part in this interactive TV experience, critics remain divided as to the creative merits of this new medium. Bandersnatch is undeniably clever and worth watching for its novelty value alone. But we feel inclined to agree with Wired: “When the show finally ends, you feel respect for creator Charlie Brooker’s ingenuity, but you don’t come away feeling changed, as you might after a tightly written, sharply edited, well-constructed hour of television. The more malleable the story, the less cogent the experience.”