The fact that Netflix chooses the order of the episodes for you is a nice concept, but that is precisely why Kaleidoscope is not convincing On January 1 of the year 2023, a new series came online on Netflix. The name: Kaleidoscope. Whoever starts this series is immediately put on the wrong track. This series is different from others. The series is not told in chronological order. "Okay", I hear you thinking, "that's not new, is it?" I totally agree with you on that. What is different is that Netflix chooses for you in which order you watch. Only the beginning (the intro episode) and the end is the same for everyone. In this way you have to puzzle yourself and tie everything together.
In Kaleidoscope, we follow Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito, Breaking Bad), who took it easy to plan the perfect heist. It took him 25 years to do it. But with all that planning comes a nice price. We're talking billions here. Leo sets out to steal these billions from the vault of his nemesis and former partner Roger Salas (Rufus Sewell, The Pale Horse). And even after 25 years of planning, sometimes the weather can provide the perfect distraction to pull off this heist.
Each episode has its own color. I myself started with the episode 'Yellow'. Of course, I first saw the episode 'Black', but that's an intro movie so it doesn't really count. 'Yellow' takes place six weeks before the robbery. Without gang members, it becomes difficult to open a heavily guarded building and impenetrable safe on your own, so in this episode, you see how Leo chooses his gang members. Everyone gets a short intro and that's it. And that is precisely the downside of this new concept. Because multiple time jumps are made through the various episodes and each character gets their 'own' episode, there are too many unnecessary subplots and the series is repeated too often. Perhaps to keep everything clear enough for the viewer, but because everything is kept so clear, you soon know how the fork is in the stem and there is no real puzzling. And that was exactly what I was hoping for after watching the introductory video.
I miss the atmosphere, tension and humor in this series
Although Esposito plays a good role, this series cannot be called very good. It's not all that, which I think is a shame because the concept really appealed to me. I miss the atmosphere, tension and humor in this series that you see in the competition, for example (think of La Casa De Papel or the French-speaking Lupin). This series could also have had a few episodes less because the creator (Eric Garcia, who also devised The Autopsy of Jane Doe, for example) regularly provides unnecessary subplots that add nothing to the story.
Is this a must-see series? No, not exactly. Does the concept of the episodes that you can see in a different order seem interesting to you? However, you can always give it a try.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
