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- Kaleidoscope Enjoyed Plenty Of Buzz Upon Its Premiere
Netflix has been known to put out unique shows and movies, underscoring its ability to remain a leading streaming platform. But a new show with an innovative concept may have disrupted everything viewers thought they knew about Netflix's original series.
With a star-studded cast and a unique non-linear narrative, Kaleidoscope debuted on Netflix to an impatient audience. Here's everything we know about the one-of-a-kind show.
UPDATE: 2023/03/06 17:24 EST BY LANE VASQUEZ
Kaleidoscope Enjoyed Plenty Of Buzz Upon Its Premiere
Kaleidoscope premiered with a bam in January 2023, but so far, reviews are mixed despite the unique premise and engaging plotline.
9 What Is Kaleidoscope About?
Kaleidoscope is a heist drama that follows a gang of criminals over the span of nearly 25 years as they plan the biggest heist in history.
To this end, the thieves plan to unlock what seems to be an unbreakable vault in order to steal an enormous amount of cash, but they need to make it through the world's most powerful corporate security team and the FBI first.
When the show began filming in 2021, the working title was Jigsaw, and the name was just changed in November 2022, a couple of months prior to its premiere.
Netflix also released a video called "Inside Look" describing the series, inviting viewers to "solve the puzzle" when the crime show officially made it onto Netflix; the show debuted January 1st, 2023.
8 What Sequence Should I Watch Kaleidoscope?
The worldwide attention that Kaleidoscope has already garnered is largely due to the uniquely immersive experience and non-linear narrative of the show.
The 8-episode series is not meant to be watched in order, so viewers can "choose their own adventure" by watching episodes in any order that they choose.
The order in which the episodes are watched will allow each viewer to see the story differently as they enter the heist at different moments in time.
7 What's So Special About The Kaleidoscope Series?
Each episode in the series is named after a color, such as "Pink," "Yellow," "Blue," and a finale called "White." Though one viewer may choose to start with "Blue" while another starts with "White," the story will still make sense.
Eric Garcia, the creator of the show, discussed the reasoning behind the flexible viewing setup.
Being able to move around and watch different orders gives you a different viewpoint on the characters. There are questions that are going to be asked in one episode that are answered in another episode. Similarly, there’ll be answers in an episode that you’re watching that you don’t even know are answers to something until you see the question when you watch another episode.
6 Where Did Inspiration For The Show Come From?
Garcia explained his initial inspiration for the show in the short "Inside Look" to the series released on YouTube, saying, “The idea for the series started from a structural place. I thought, ‘With batch delivery, you’re getting everything at once. There’s no reason conceptually why you should have to watch them one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.'”
The show also took some inspiration from true events following Hurricane Sandy, where $70 billion in bonds went missing from downtown Manhattan.
5 Kaleidoscope The Series Streams Only On Netflix
Since the basis for the show was a desire to have all the episodes in the series released at the same time, Netflix was the perfect platform.
Netflix almost always releases seasons of shows or series at once, although other platforms have moved away from this structure, which is a perfect fit for Kaleidoscope.
4 What Famous Actors Are In Kaleidoscope?
Giancarlo Esposito stars as Leo Pap, the lead of the heist operation and mastermind for his team. While he is dedicated to following through with the plan, he's more so in it for revenge than for the money.
Esposito is best known for his roles in Breaking Bad and its sequel, Better Call Saul, for which fans questioned if Esposito was really done playing Gus Fring after the ending of the show, or if he might reprise the role in the future.
Some other major characters played by the cast include Paz Vega as Ava Mercer, a powerful and convincing attorney with questionable morals.
Tati Gabrielle plays Hannah Kim, a member of the heist crew who is described as a "chameleon", and Peter Mark Kendall plays Stan Loomis, a small-time smuggler but romantic at heart.
Other members of the cast include Jai Courtney, Rufus Sewell, Rosaline Elbay, Niousha Noor, Jordan Mendoza, and more.
3 Who Created The Kaleidoscope Series?
As mentioned, the series was created by Eric Garcia. Garcia is known for his novel, Matchstick Men, which was turned into a movie starring Nicolas Cage. He also wrote the film Strange but True, which was released in 2019.
Executive producers of Kaleidoscope include Garcia, Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Jordan Sheehan, Fred Berger, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Justin Levy, and Russell Fine.
While Kaleidoscope is unique, the idea of offering an immersive experience for viewers is not an entirely new concept. In 2018, the creators of the Netflix sci-fi drama Black Mirror released a movie called Bandersnatch, which offered opportunities throughout the movie for viewers to choose what happens in the story.
Others have also noticed similarities between Kaleidoscope and the 1992 Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs, which similarly follows multiple characters who are involved in a heist and are named after different colors.
2 Is Netflix's Kaleidoscope Any Good?
Not everyone thinks that Kaleidoscope compares to similar shows; audience reviews are all over the place. While most Google users gave positive reviews, the number of one-star reviews is underwhelming.
IMDb reviewers gave the show better reviews; it's mostly recommended by fans, with commenters saying it's "like a free toy in a cereal box."
Yet critics said there were some letdowns throughout season one, including a lot of "filler" in each episode. Some viewers also criticized the characters and derided the "twist" as being "dumb."
Love it or hate it, though, Kaleidoscope has clearly generated buzz.
1 Will Kaleidoscope Have A Season 2?
Kaleidoscope is a fairly unique concept despite similarities to other shows, but it's unclear yet whether the show was a hit by Netflix standards.
The show did hit the top ten most-viewed series on Netflix when it debuted, so fans have their fingers crossed for a revival somewhere on Netflix's 2023 list of original productions.
