Kaleidoscope is Netflix’s newest series of the year as it debuted on the streaming giant on January 1st 2023. The show stars Giancarlo Esposito plays the role of Leo Pap who is the leader of the heist, the rest of the huge cast includes, Rufus Sewell, Paz Vega, Jai Courtney, Tati Gabrielle, along with Peter Mark Kendall who will be seen playing the role of Stan Loomis. There are guest performances by Niousha Noor, Patch Darragh and Max Casella. This Netflix series is created by Eric Garcia. Now you might be wondering why is this series so special? I mean except for Esposito’s inclusion what is so special about the series? The Plot? Let’s see, so the basic premise of the series is, “A master thief and his crew attempt an epic heist worth $7 billion, but betrayal, greed and other threats undermine their plans.”
No, right? I mean yeah it is another heist series from Netflix. Money Heist hangover much? Well, regardless of whatever you might think but this mini-series is interesting. There are only eight episodes in the show but there is a deadly twist to this. You can watch all the eight episodes of the show in whatever order you want. Yes, you heard it right. You don’t have to follow the boring chronological order of episodes to understand the story of the series. In whatever, order you’ll watch the show, before getting to the final/8th episode, your complete understanding of the show would be different than the person who has seen it in a different order. This means that there are 5040 ways to watch the show, with the commonality between all the ways is that the climax remains the same.
The title of the show completely justifies the concept. This is definitely a reinvention of storytelling from Netflix as they’ve used the format of episodic structure to their advantage where they are able to tell different stories or multiversal variants of the story just by watching the show in a different order. Just so all of you understand, this means that the writing should be full-proof that the plot, character motivations and actions all make sense for all the combinations i.e., 5040 ways. This sounds futuristic and supremely advanced as a concept but as this is the first time something like this has been done, did Netflix do a good job at it? Is it worth watching, not once but 5040 times? Let’s find out.
Kaleidoscope Reviews Roundup – Underwhelming Story Compromises a Great Concept?
Kaleidoscope despite attracting so much attention, doesn’t have many reviews available. Rotten Tomatoes only has 5 critical responses and all the others have been the audiences reacting to the show. The Rotten Tomatoes Critic’s score falls at 20% but the Audience score is at 64%. Not a great start I might add. Let’s take a look at all the reviews from critics:
LaToya Ferguson
TheWrap
“Esposito and Sewell anchor the series with their strength on opposite sides of the chessboard, and Courtney’s Bob is so blisteringly ignorant and toxic that it’s hard to look away.”
Tim Stevens
The Spool
“Kaleidoscope is rarely outright bad, but it is too frequently not especially good.”
Erin Brady
Slashfilm
“Netflix’s Heist Experiment Doesn’t Elevate Itself.”
Angie Han
Hollywood Reporter
“In practice, Kaleidoscope feels like a slick but forgettable two-hour movie puffed up into a jumbled six-hour saga. The main advantage of its unorthodox structure is that it helps obscure how generic some of its component pieces really are.”
Bob Strauss
San Francisco Chronicle
“No matter what [Garcia] gives the characters to deal with… they come off as pieces in a game.”
Original Score: 2/4
The consensus that I can see in all these is that despite the show giving us so many different variations of the story to watch, the story itself isn’t that interesting that one would be intrigued to watch it in a different order. It looks like Netflix in order to create something great has forgotten to start with a good story. However, I would still recommend this show to everyone as it takes guts to do something this experimental. I would at least watch this show once in a random order, just for the fun of it.
If you’re wondering what will be the best order to watch the show in as I don’t assume you want to watch it 5040 times or 40,320 times, if you also factor in the finale, here are some of the suggestions:
Watch it Chronologically
Viewing Order: Violet, Green, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Red, Pink, White.
Watch it in Reverse
Viewing Order: Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Violet, White.
Most Effective
Viewing Order: Yellow, Violet, Orange, Green, Blue, Red, Pink, White.
All eight episodes of Kaleidoscope are currently streaming on Netflix.
If you have any questions regarding Netflix’s Kaleidoscope, feel free to ask in the comments below. For more content, stay tuned. As usual, like, subscribe and share our articles as we here are trying to build a community of people High on Cinema!
