'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. The Reverend' Trailer: It's Like 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' With Jokes
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is back for an all-new interactive special, Kimmy vs. the Reverend. Like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, viewers will be able to control (some of) the action, which may or may not be such a great idea. An all-new Kimmy vs. the Reverend trailer gives you a look at how all of this will work, providing viewers with options like MAKE OUT or PLAN WEDDING, or WAIT FOR UBER or WALK. You get the idea.
Kimmy vs. the Reverend Trailer
In Kimmy vs. the Reverend, "Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) sets off on her biggest adventure yet. Three states! Explosions! A dancing hamburger! And you, the viewer, get to decide how the story goes. Will you foil the Reverend's (Jon Hamm) evil plan and get Kimmy to her wedding on time? Or will you accidentally start a war against the robots? So grab your remote and a tray of delicious scrod, 'cause Kimmy's got her own Netflix interactive special!"
This isn't just a regular episode of Kimmy Schmidt, either. This is interactive. According to press notes, after the interactive Black Mirror special Bandersnatch, the Netflix "content team were really passionate about starting to experiment with other genres, and comedy was their first instinct." Netflix's Director of Product Innovation Carla Engelbrecht says: "[Creators] Tina [Fey] and Robert [Carlock] immediately came to mind, because they were continually pushing boundaries with the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt series. They are phenomenal, amazing storytellers and we knew that with this set of tools, they were going to not only take our interactive storytelling to new heights, but they were also going to push comedy to places it's never been before. To end a series with an interactive special is unprecedented and it's going to create an opportunity for viewers to come into Kimmy's world."
When it came time to come up with the interactive story, Tina Fey says: "We started by talking about what we might want to happen and what would lend to good stories. We had to decide whether to try to stick to one story, or to do our typical A, B, and C story. Our format has always been three and because we're masochists, we ultimately said, 'We have to do three stories.' Then we just started writing the stories as we normally would. It was really fun. I think it suits the comedy writer's brain to have this freedom to think about crazy ways to have a dead-end or a funny way for things to loop around."
I remain wary about this entire "interactive TV" idea – I don't want movies and TV to be a video game; if I want that, I'll just play a video game. But Netflix is clearly all-in on the idea, and who am I to challenge a huge, all-powerful media company?
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend arrives on May 12.