Unreliable Narrator

Sam Barlow has a close encounter of the TV exec kind

Last year I wrote a column about Quibi, the company that was going to reinvent television for the millennial generation. I can safely say that in the 52,000 Quibis that have passed since, I have been proven right. But I’ve been talking with other ‘TV people’ and have been thinking about this world again. I tend to get excited in these meetings because I feel that we are on the edge of revolution. But invariably the conversations go something like this:

Hi, I’m Brad TV, vice president of development at Mega TV. This is my assistant, Jane. We are losing mucho eyeballs to gaming so we wanted to take this general meeting and ideate with you. Here, have a bottle of water.

Thanks! Look, with your digitally native platform you could deliver more for your audience than just volume. You could rethink what a TV show is.

I love it. Would you like more water?

In the past you had to broadcast everyone the exact same show because it was literally being transmitted from a single source. But now you don’t! You could take the subjective way we all have a different experience of watching the same single show and make it literal. Imagine, say, Friends, but you see more stories of the character you like most and fewer of the ones you don’t like.

But doesn’t everyone love Ross the most, in Friends? I know I do. Jane? Jane loves Ross too. I guess we could do a spin-off series about Ross. Was that what you were thinking?

My point was that in the digital world, we serve up highly specific and custom content. That’s how the Internet works. Try thinking of your stories as more malleable. Make a TV show as personal, as explorable as other digital things. Also, I did not know there was anyone whose favourite character was Ross.

More water? I love gamers but are normal people ready for such radical innovations?

Can I give you two examples? First, from 2019, when Netflix launched the anthology show Love, Death & Robots. This being an anthology show, they had to choose an order in which to present episodes. Do you start with the best, or hold that back a little? What episode should you finish on? Should that be the strongest? Netflix tried an experiment. Enter: Lukas Thoms, a gay man who watches the show – and notices he gets a different episode order to his friend, who happens to be straight. Specifically, the episode Lukas gets first is focused on a lesbian character but the straight friend gets the episode with the most heterosexual sex. He tweets: Just discovered the most INSANE thing. The ORDER OF THE EPISODES for Netflix’s new series Love Death & Robots changes based on whether Netflix thinks you’re gay or straight.

It turns out this was all coincidence. In fact, Netflix was serving episodes randomly to track statistically if there were optimal orders. But it was exciting to see people’s reaction to the idea that their TV might be watching them as much as they watch it.

The second example. Also Netflix. It adds The Notebook to its service. Fans of the famously sad movie jump in to watch their favorite, hankie in hand. Ninety minutes later, things kick off on social media. Because now The Notebook has a happy ending? People are confused, amazed. Did they misremember the ending to the movie? Eventually, Netflix speaks up. Again, it swears this was not intentional. Somehow an alternate edit of the movie was uploaded in place of the proper movie. It tweets: Things you should know... – we did not edit the notebook – an alternate version exists and was supplied to us – we are getting to the bottom of it asap – apparently some films have more than one ending?!

The broadcaster ripped open a hole in space and time into an alternate universe, and it’s apologising? Look at the energy you can mine from prodding back at viewers, shaking things up and creating content that is not entirely dead on arrival!

I was one of the guys who felt The Notebook should have had a happy ending, so I totally understand where you’re coming from. There’s a lot of movies we could fix like that! This is a really great idea! (Jane, we could start with La La Land? Call Lionsgate.) Look, let’s talk again soon. Reception will validate your parking, and feel free to grab some water on your way out. (He was fun. You could tell he was a gamer because he didn’t hydrate much.)

Imagine, say, Friends, but you see more stories of the character you like most and fewer of the ones you don’t like