Sign up to receive the Future Tense newsletter every other Saturday. When my husband asked me if I wanted to try the "cat trivia game" on Netflix, I thought it was going to be some sort of quiz about felines. I like cats, so I said sure. The "cat trivia game," it turns out, is Cat Burglar, which Netflix calls an "edgy, over-the-top, interactive trivia toon." It debuted in February and comes from the makers of Black Mirror.

Netflix's choose-your-own-adventure content will find its audience--first through novelty, then because creators will tease ever more fireworks out of the form. But interactive TV starts at a disadvantage: It is arriving just as we've learned, in so many ways, not to interact at all. Peter Rubin (@provenself) wrote about the Tetris effect in issue 26.11. This article appears in the February issue.