Netflix Testing Out Random Episode Orders For Original Shows Starting With 'Love, Death & Robots'

Netflix has been changing the way we watch TV, leading the cord-cutting phenomenon and disrupting the movie and TV industries with its slew of acclaimed original titles. But could it soon be changing the order in which we watch a show? Viewers of Netflix's latest original show Love, Death & Robots noticed over the weekend that the experimental animated anthology series was shown in different episode orders per person. The streaming giant confirmed that it has been testing Netflix random episode order with Love, Death & Robots, which raises the question: Will Netflix be rolling out randomized episode orders for more of its original shows?

The revelation that Netflix was testing random episode orders came via Twitter, where viewers of Love, Death & Robots realized that noticed that episode order of the animated anthology series changed with each person. Due to the series' focus on sex and LGBT issues, users at first assumed that the different episode orders were determined by their sexuality (information that Netflix does not have), but Netflix quickly debunked those theories by informing concerned viewers that the service was testing randomized episode orders with Love, Death & Robots.

"We've never had a show like Love, Death & Robots before so we're trying something completely new: presenting four different episode orders," Netflix wrote on its Twitter account. "The version you're shown has nothing to do with gender, ethnicity, or sexual identity — info we don't even have in the first place."

We've never had a show like Love, Death & Robots before so we're trying something completely new: presenting four different episode orders. The version you're shown has nothing to do with gender, ethnicity, or sexual identity — info we don't even have in the first place.

— Netflix (@netflix) March 19, 2019

Lukas Thoms, a co-founder of Out in Tech who originally started the assumption that Netflix was ordering episodes based on sexuality, followed up that "apparently the episode ordering is just a 100% random A/B test that doesn't involve any ML."

This is not the first time that Netflix's randomized testing has garnered some criticism — its customizing of show and movie thumbnails on its homepage garnered some outcry when users observed that the thumbnails seemed to be personalized by race or gender. However, while randomized episode orders have been confirmed to not be connected to sexuality, it does present the issue of whether Netflix has the right to tinker with the viewing experience.