In particular, I am interested in the growth of “Appisodes”: versions of television episodes with embedded games and interactive components that allow viewer/players to interact directly with the narrative, often through mini-games or other interactive components that punctuate the episode and are required to move the story forward. Introduced with minimal fanfare, Appisodes (which I have referred to as “Merged Screen” experiences) have recently been made available through outlets like the Itunes store or Amazon. The first few appisode apps released had a number of factors in common. Disney Jr. Appisodes, (which I have written about elsewhere), Dora the Explorer Appisodes, and VeggieTale Appisodes were all extensions of broadcast television animated series targeted at pre-schoolers. However, the most recent addition, Annedroid Appisodes produced by Amazon, breaks from this formula and points to some of the broader potential—and limitations—in this new format for children’s media.

Annedroids is a part of Amazon’s effort to compete with Netflix and Hulu through Amazon Prime and the creation of original programing. Annedroids is a half-hour live action series targeted at elementary school-aged children, and follows the exploits of a young girl Anne who designs, builds, and programs large, complex, and personality-filled robots and conducts scientific experiments and solves problems with the help of her two friends Nick and Shania. Made with a combination of live-action and CGI techniques, the series incorporates a large number of scientific concepts, using the robots and CGI elements to depict dangerous and dramatic scientific experiments while still using child actors that are relatable, realistic, and differ dramatically from the glitter and glam of many Disney stars. In addition to these science-centered storylines, the main character is a young girl who has an extensive knowledge of science and a penchant for building, coding, and engineering, presenting a strong role-model for young girls.

Annedroids, therefore, seems like the perfect fit for conversion into the appisode format. The series’ focus provides the opportunity for simple coding-based mini-games or games and activities that teach scientific principles. Given the older target audience of Anendroids, one might imagine that there would be a higher level of educational content in their Appisodes. However, in practice Annedroids Appisodes only show hints of this potential. Of the first two episodes released, each included only three interactive elements/games, only one of which (in each episode) had a clear educational component. Both of these games are based around the idea of completing increasingly complex circuits. Some other games included minor educational components (like the inclusion of weather data or different kinds of animal footprints), but most were based around simple movements—chasing or running from something—or finding the right spot where something was hidden.

By looking at Annedroids Appisodes, a number of challenges, limitations, and potentialities of the form can be seen. While interactive elements can be easily incorporated into a series like Dora the Explorer or Doc McStuffins because they are animated, converting live-action content into animated games in a way that appears seamless and preserves consistent quality is much harder. This is a challenge that must be resolved in order to make Appisodes a realistic option for a broader variety of content. How to incorporate interactive content in a way that authentically adds value and to the episode and is fun and engaging is another challenge, one that the distinctions between the Annedroids Appisodes and previous iterations places further into context.

Amazon’s stake in selling not only their content but their platforms to consumers makes their children’s content a strong site for considering the potential of appisodes for both creative-storytelling (lauded by Annedroids creator J.J. Johnson) and interactivity. With initiatives like Kindle Free Time, part of Amazon’s pitch to families is its ability to curate media content so children only have access to “age-appropriate” media and can be limited in terms of time spent on non-educational content. While series have only just begun exploring how children’s established media habits—including repetitive viewing and viewing on mobile devices—and access to new devices can allow for new forms of storytelling/media interaction, the themes and limited interactive elements of Annedroid Appisodes is an important case study in considering the limits places on such efforts.

Media is a significant part of many children’s lives, and how to encourage children to interact with this media in creative, playful, and even educational way represents an important avenue for parents and scholars to consider. Appisodes represent the possibility of incorporating the kinds of interactive learning studied and promoted in other media such as video games into children’s consumption of television content. For distributors like Amazon who are presenting their platform as a better alternative for many parents, explicitly activating the educational content potential of Appisodes can help to differentiate them and garner positive attention as the educational content of Annedroids itself has done. As a scholar and an aunt of two young girls, considering how a platform that is only beginning to take shape might be developed in a way that increases the play, interactivity, and educational potential of media presents an important opportunity to look at the growth of new media as an opportunity to develop the best aspects of media designed for children, not as a threat to children it is sometimes framed. As a fledgling format, Appisodes may have not reached this potential, but as the format grows parents, educators, and children’s media scholars will have the opportunity to explore what it does well, what it struggles with, and how we can advocate for the value of merging video and interactive content in children’s media’s future.

Amazon Studios’s ardent encouragement of viewer feedback raises any number of questions about participation, crowdsourcing, and exploitation. The surveys that viewers are asked to fill out are generally simple and full of best-to-worst-style prompts. And unsurprisingly, the studio publicly valorizes both the importance and impact of public opinion but then chooses not to reveal exactly what role the feedback plays in its final decisions on series development, or what it does with the massive amounts of data it mines from the surveys and reviews. To Amazon Studios, the feedback is “very influential” yet not “as simple as American Idol.” The studio essentially lures viewers in to “Watch. Rate. Review.” (and “Share” should be the fourth pillar of that tagline given the constant call to share feedback on social media) and takes advantage of their labor, all under the guise of agency and democratic choice.

However, while these are important issues to consider, they are far from new; Hollywood has been inviting us behind the curtain with promises of influence for a long time. So with the acknowledgement that Amazon Studios’s practices are a form of manipulative crowdsourcing, I’d like to turn my attention to what it intends to achieve with this strategy.

The streaming video market has suddenly grown crowded. Netflix and Hulu subscriptions are still on the rise, Yahoo’s Screen made waves by reviving Community, and Sony’s Crackle continues to randomly appear in conversations about originals and revivals. Dropping a reported nine figures to become the streaming home of HBO’s library is a start, but Amazon needs to develop a reason for us to sign up for Prime Instant Video other than “Oh yeah, this comes with my awesome two-day shipping.”

Consequently, Pilot Season represents the studio’s attempts to frame itself as a “disruption” of both the traditional Hollywood development system and Netflix’s production of prestige television. Early on, the promotional discourses for Pilot Season emphasized a kind of viewer-driven populism mentioned above. In an early 2013 interview with TV Guide, Price said, “The traditional process relies heavily on gut instinct. There’s something to that, but if you could really get all your pilots out in front of all your customers, that would give you the best answer. Often real game-changing shows defy conventional wisdom.” Similarly, Jill Soloway, writer/director of Transparent, called the process “kind of relieving,” and noted, “In the past, when I’ve made pilots, there’s always this phantom testing. This is really a way for people to see it and decide if they like it for themselves.”

Without explicitly excoriating other studios, Price and Soloway signaled that the “traditional process” doesn’t always work, and certainly doesn’t include the voice of the people enough as it should. This chatter about viewer choice was obviously intended to bring as many people to the Prime service, but it also contrasted with Netflix’s approach to original series—most notably its willingness to spend large sums of money to attract big stars and make programs that look like they could have just as easily aired on HBO. As a studio that started—and failed—in film development, Amazon first branded itself as more populist both because it fit as a competitive strategy against Netflix and because the studio lacked the full infrastructure to develop prestige programming. Pilot Season was thus explicitly not NBC or CBS, but also more implicitly not Netflix as well.

However, there’s been a subtle, but notable shift in the studio’s publicity approach in 2014. The first Pilot Season gained attention from the trade press, but the pilots themselves—all comedies, many directed at children, and some of them very, very rough—were not well-received. February’s second round of pilots featured more famous names, bigger budgets, and more attention paid to drama series. The response? Much better. Instead of talking about the participatory nature of viewer feedback, Price’s comments in the most recent round of press have touched on the studio’s $100 million commitment to original programming production in just the third quarter alone. And at a recent TCA presentation, countless actors and writers underscored that Amazon is making good TV, that it gives artists freedom, and that working there is as good or better than anywhere else in the industry.

Amazon Studios hasn’t entirely ditched the populist side of Pilot Season, but it has seemingly found that appealing to more traditional signifiers of prestige and quality improves a reputation and awareness much faster. What that means for the open feedback system is unknown, but it illustrates that all disruptors are just waiting for their opportunity to be more traditional.