This past weekend, Jay and I watched Netflix’s new show Kaleidoscope. It premiered on January 1, 2023, and had been getting some buzz over social media, so we wanted to check out what the fuss was about.
At the heart of it, Kaleidoscope is your standard heist drama complete with double-crossing, murder, revenge, FBI agents hot on the trail, ultra-rich people, and really, really, really terrible make-up that’s supposed to make its leads look younger but YIKES IT’S BAD lol. Its large ensemble cast includes Giancarlo Esposito, Paz Vega, Rufus Sewell, Niousha Noor, Tati Gabrielle, Rosaline Elbay, Peter Mark Kendall, and Jai Courtney. The story is very loosely based on a real-life heist that happened in Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy, in which $70-billion in bonds were stolen.
Kaleidoscope’s “unique” premise is that the episodes, each named after a color, can be viewed in any order for a different viewing experience. It’s quite a fun concept. You can watch the episodes in chronological order or jump around to view the show as different genres, such as a mystery story. There’s even an Orange is the New Black and a “Tarantino” order. Netflix recommends starting with “Black,” which is basically a 2-minute explanation of the concept, and saving “White,” the episode when the heist actually happens, for last.
We’re basic, so we decided to just view it chronologically. This is the order we watched Kaleidoscope in:
- “Violet” (24 years before the heist)
- “Green” (Seven years before the heist)
- “Yellow” (Six weeks before the heist)
- “Orange” (Three weeks before the heist)
- “Blue” (Five days before the heist)
- “White” (The heist)
- “Red” (The morning after the heist)
- “Pink” (Six months after the heist)
Overall, we thought Kaleidoscope was just okay. Well, I thought it was just okay. Jay didn’t like it at all and we both struggled to get through “Red” and “Pink,“ mainly because most of the characters went from tolerable to straight-up unlikable. I think we watched it in the wrong order and if we had saved “White” until last, at least there would have been some intrigue to find out how some of the characters ended up with their fates in “Red” and “Pink.“ Unlikable characters aside, the plot (in the order we watched it) and concept had so much potential to be really fun, but it just fell flat. Esposito and Vega can act their asses off but with the exception of Tati Gabrielle (from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Uncharted), the rest of the cast wasn’t particularly strong. Other than the three actors mentioned above, the cast also didn’t have the chemistry that makes heist stories fun to watch.
Like I said above, I’m not sure that chronologically was the correct order for *us* to watch it in, but maybe others fared better than we did. If non-linear storytelling isn’t your thing, then just stick with the timeline as we did. But if you’re down with plotline time-traveling, then check out some of the orders recommended by Netflix and other viewers after the page break. I kinda wish we’d watch it in the Classic Detective Story order. Oh well.
Did you watch Kaleidoscope? If so, what order did you watch it and what did you think? Please let me know!
The Classic Detective Story order:
- “Orange”
- “Green”
- “Violet”
- “Red”
- “Yellow”
- “Blue”
- “White”
- “Pink”
The Tarantino Film order:
- “Blue”
- “Green”
- “Yellow”
- “Orange”
- “Violet”
- “Pink”
- “White”
- “Red”
The Usual Suspects order:
- “Pink”
- “Violet”
- “Green”
- “Yellow”
- “Orange”
- “Blue”
- “White”
- “Red”
The Orange is the New Black order:
- “Green”
- “Violet”
- “Red”
- “Orange”
- “Yellow”
- “Blue”
- “White”
- “Pink”
The Reservoir Dogs order:
- “Red”
- “Yellow”
- “Violet”
- “Orange”
- “Green”
- “Pink”
- “Blue”
- “White”
