Caleidoscópio

Are you fed up with stories? Aren't they all becoming way too predictable, with their structured beginning, middle and end and cliched character arcs? Don't you wish for something novel, something that captures the unpredictability and 'chaos' of reality?

'Kaleidoscope' attempts something which, on the surface, appears quite revolutionary - the viewer is able to watch the episodes in any order and is encouraged to experiment - but is this merely a cheap tacked-on gimmick thought up at the last moment to try and inject some interest into an otherwise generic 'heist' drama?

Or is it something well thought-out that is intrinsically connected to the theme, plot and characters?

I'd say it's the former.

There was certainly nothing here that would entice me to ever watch the whole thing again in a different order. All the novelty of this approach achieved was a sense of dissatisfaction, distraction and a feeling that maybe it would have been better in the 'proper' order - whatever that was?

As for the drama itself - it was mildly entertaining nonsense.

The pacing was reasonably handled, it has a pretty decent cast and the heist itself was quite fun - all of which lift it just above average.

On the negative side, there was some terrible 'de-ageing' employed in one episode and I feel for the viewers who end up watching that one first. Also, none of the characters were particularly believable, there were multiple plot contrivances and the character arcs were limited and predictable. In other words, the story wasn't very well written - putting it in a different order isn't going to fix that.

I can't say which order I watched it in without delving too much into spoilers, on the other hand the whole concept means spoilers will occur for some as a consequence of the order they watch it in. All in all - a failed experiment.

For any other budding writers - master the basics before you mess with the formula.

I was really looking forward to watching this show. The trailer was appealing, it looked like Ocean's eleven meets Tarantino, so I binge-watched it as soon as it hit Netflix.

But unfortunately, due to the gimmicky "any order will do" structure, the tension doesn't build up, the script had to be "neutral" in every episode so as not to spoil the other ones, should you watch them in a different order than the default one listed on Netflix.

Bottom line, there's too many unnecessary episodes, lingering on back-stories that could have been wrapped up in a few minutes, and not enough about the heist itself. Many important details are rushed or simply overlooked, while other quite insignificant ones are explained in excruciating details.

I really hoped I'd be hooked and amazed. Didn't happen.

Despite this being a so called non-linear series (you can watch the episodes in any order and it still makes sense), I decided to watch them in chronological order and I'm glad I did.

If you would like to do the same, here is the episode order by timeline.

Violet - 24 years before the heist.

Green - 7 years before the heist.

Yellow - 6 weeks before the heist.

Orange - 3 weeks before the heist.

Blue - 5 days before the heist.

White - The heist.

Red - The morning after the heist.

Pink - 6 months after the heist.

The non-linear format : A nice idea but I would have been disappointed to end the series on certain episodes. Just my opinion though.

The gimmick of being able to watch the show in any order is fine on paper, but what does it actually accomplish? You're not going to watch it more than once and who really cares what order someone else watches the show in.

I don't mind non-linear storytelling and the show was perfectly watchable in the order I got it, but all in all there is very little payoff. I also figured out the twist quite early, because it's pretty obvious if you watch a specific episode early on so when I got the actual heist episode as the last one there was no surprise and it was pretty lackluster. Think about how Oceans Eleven would feel if the actual heist wasn't even interesting.

The cast does a decent job even though everyone is fairly one dimensional.

Overall it wasn't a terrible show, but you're not missing a whole lot if you decide to skip it.

For the most part I enjoyed the story but the random playback of episodes that was the hook by Netflix didn't work in my opinion. I personally feel I would have given more stars and be invested in the characters and story if it had unfolded based on timeline. I'm not a fan of series that use flashbacks in general and with the episodes playing in a non linear order felt jumbled at times.

That being said the characters were well flushed out and the actors cast did a great job. The final episode ( which is the same for everyone) did close a lot of gaps in the story and was a satisfying end to the limited series.