Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

Choose your own adventure TV?

So I was more amused than I expected to be by today's discovery.

I was looking for background noise on Netflix while trying to assemble some Ikea furniture.  I found "You vs Wild" and didn't really thing anything of the title.  It features Bear the survival guy who I've seen on various other background noise shows in the past.  Sure why not.

So I turn it on and away I go.  But wait!   It's not *just* background noise.  In fact, it requires at least slight attention because it's interactive?!?!  

Lol it goes for a little bit and then you get a choice -- the first is something like "I have space for one more item in my pack, do I bring my grappling hook or my sling shot?" and you use your remote to pick which one you want.   Your choice will definitely have future repercussions.  For instance: at one point I got a snarky "well if I had my sling shot I could..." lol.   And at another he definitely got food poisoning a few choices after I had him eat something he really shouldn't have.

Yes it's certainly very simplistic, but I was amused and it kept my attention for a couple episodes at least.   I admit I will probably watch more later.  Frustrating though, if you pick wrong, you have to redo the whole episode from the beginning -- you can't just redo the last choice.  And my ridiculous TV only fast forwards 10 seconds at a time, so this quickly became very frustrating.    The first episode I flew through, no issues.  So I actually figured every choice was acceptable and it just changed how the story went.   But no.  In episode two I made a few choices that resulted in "I'm going to have to call my rescue team now.  The mission is aborted." and then you have to restart from the beginning :( 

On the one hand, it's very hard to take seriously -- I'm sorry, you're in this situation and you want *my* opinion on how to survive?   Dude - I haven't so much as set up a tent in more than 20 yrs.  On the other hand at times I want very much to pick the "right" solution and get him through safely to finish the mission.   But then there's the devil on my shoulder who asks "well what *would* happen if you tried to swim under a crocodile?"  lol.  These are important questions I never knew I needed answered.   Spoiler alert - it seems you cannot kill off poor Bear in his own series.   The worst you can do is put him in a situation where he has to call for air extraction ;).  But if you're bored, it's a moderately amusing way to kill some time.  Not quite TV, not quite a game...   Somewhere in-between.

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