We Lost Our Human Parent Guide

Cantankerous cat Pud (Ben Schwartz) and bubbly dog Ham (Ayo Edebiri) live together with Human (Adrienne C. Moore), though not always peacefully. One morning the two pets wake up to find that not only is Human gone, so are all the other humans! Desperate to find her, the two critters team up on a mission to the center of the universe to find out what happened and how to undo it. In this interactive special, you get to make choices that determine how the story unfolds.

Netflix has done interactive specials in the past and they are essentially the digital version of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. As the show progresses, the viewer is given options to select, thereby changing the direction of the story. This can be a lot of fun for kids, as they can make choices themselves, and then do it again and get a whole new story as they make different choices.

I appreciate the creativity of this particular medium. It’s a great way to tell a multifaceted story and add an interactive element to a traditionally view-only format. However, there are some downsides. The main one for me is that you don’t know how long your “adventure” is going to be. Netflix lists the runtime as 103 mins, but my son and I were at it for about 2 hours. Now that I’ve played it through, I think there are ways to make it shorter, but it’s also possible to make it even longer than that. Even my six-year-old, who never complains about getting extra screen time, was lamenting the runtime and making choices purely based on what he thought would get us to the conclusion faster.

My biggest complaint is that once you do get to the end, you’re given a bunch of choices that all essentially have you start over. If you want to get to the credits you have to find a small, semi-transparent option at the top of the screen that will take you to the credits. For children who are new to reading, or just don’t know to look beyond the usual choices menu, this format design essentially traps the viewer in the film indefinitely. If you’re a busy parent who wants your kids to be occupied for many hours this could be a plus. If you’re trying to limit screentime or just get family movie night over with so you can initiate bedtime, then this could be a serious problem.

A small technological note is that the interactivity does not work on all devices. My TV apparently was not compatible, even though other Netflix interactive shows have worked just fine in the past, so we had to switch to my laptop in order to access it.

Format aside, We Lost Our Human is surprisingly good. The characters are charming and likeable and learn valuable lessons, and the sci-fi multiverse premise is simple enough for young audiences to understand while being creative enough to engage adults. The themes around family, love, and teamwork are sweet and age appropriate. There is little negative content outside of some sci-fi cartoon violence, though because of the infinite timeline premise no one is ever hurt or dead for long. One storyline we stumbled across involved some zombies that were surprisingly scary for such a sweet production, which could prove to be too much for very young or sensitive viewers.

Because of the format I wouldn’t necessarily recommend We Lost Our Human for a family movie night, but it is a fun and heartfelt option for children who enjoy interactive shows that offer the chance to discover new storylines and endings with each viewing.