CBS All Access' Interrogation is hurt by its "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style gimmick

TVLine

The "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style police interrogation drama, which lets viewers watch the middle eight episodes in any order, hurts more than helps, says Pilot Viruet. "It’s frustrating because all of the elements are there but Interrogation unknowingly sacrifices its own quality by allowing us to choose where to go," says Viruet. "The story was good enough that I was dying to know the conclusion but the way it was presented made me want to skip ahead to the finale instead of wasting time meandering around the other eight episodes. The idea of a Choose Your Own Adventure approach to a crime procedural is certainly exciting on paper; it’s a true disappointment that it doesn’t work in execution."

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• "Choose Your Own Adventure" ends up creating a messy viewing experience: "I had to watch the pilot of Interrogation at the beginning, and I had to watch the season finale at the end," says Gregory Lawrence. "In between were eight episodes of television that I could choose to watch in any order I pleased. When one episode ended, I would be reminded by helpful onscreen text to return to the main screen and choose another episode — whatever episode I wanted. Thus is the storytelling gimmick at the crux of Interrogation, a CBS All Access crime drama based on a true case. The goal for this experiment? To make me, the viewer, feel like an actual detective; to put me subjectively in the shoes of an officer working on a cold case, whose following of clues and leads rarely result in a linear path. The result of this experiment? A frustratingly messy season of television, one that seems to be working against its gimmick, too often amplifying its weaknesses, and only rarely striking points of intrigue."
• Interrogation falls far short of its genre-stretching ambitions: "These genre switcheroos supply the bulk of the surprises in Interrogation, which is otherwise chock-full of stock characters, pedestrian atmospherics and uninspired performances, even from generally reliable actors like (Kyle) Gallner and (David) Strathairn," says Inkoo Kang, adding: "But the most disappointing aspect of Interrogation may be the writers' reluctance to peddle uncertainty. The 10th episode — which I watched midway through my viewing, since I jumped around the installments as suggested — provides an extremely compelling (if ultimately unprovable) answer to the show's central mystery, which deflated the remaining storylines. Interrogation was meant to argue for the excitement of the journey, but it offers too little to see along the way."
• Interrogation is just good enough to be frustrating for the ways in which it isn’t yet better: "I dipped around through half the show’s episodes, starting at the beginning and then moving to the penultimate episode in the show’s timeline to see if it would be comprehensible," says Daniel D'Addario. "It wasn’t, really."