You can't pirate Netflix's latest new show - a move that might signal what might be waiting in TV's future - as Netflix rolls out the first in a series of interactive shows where you get to choose what happens next.
Netflix is going interactive and is now offering users the interactive, choose-your-own-adventure children's story, Puss in Boots: Trapped in an Epic Tale. Two more shows are set to follow with Buddy Thunderstruck following 14 July and Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout coming in 2018.
Netflix calls the new shows an experiment.
Puss in Boots: Trapped in an Epic Tale, released globally and produced by DreamWorks Animation, gives viewers 13 choices throughout the story to choose a different branch, making it highly rewatchable for kids to try other possibilities.
The shortest story that Puss in Boots: Trapped in an Epic Tale can be - depending on all of the variable choices - is 18 minutes but the episode can stretch to a full 39 minutes at the longest with different choices.
Puss and the evil narrator (the cat is trapped in a magic storybook) offer their suggestions at various points in the story after every two to four minutes, and the user each time gets to choose a different "branching" between two choices.
This new Netflix show is virtually impossible to pirate. It's available on some modern smart TVs by using a remote control, game consoles and iOS devices like iPhones and iPads, but doesn't work on the internet, Apple TV, Chromecast or Android devices yet.
"The chilren's programming space was a natural place for us to start since kids are eager to play with the favourite characters and are already inclined to tap, touch and swipe at screens," says Carla Engelbrecht Fisher , Netflix, director of product innovation, in a statement.
"They also talk to their screens as though the characters can hear them. Now, that conversation really can be two-way".
She says Netflix said it came up with the idea by thinking of what type of stories only Netflix can tell. "Netflix is an interactive device ecosystem. We're not beholden to terrestrial television. We’re not beholden to linear schedules."
