TV Show Review - Kaleidoscope (Mini Series)

Season: Mini Series
Genre: Drama/ Crime/ Action
Number of episodes: 9
Year: 2023
Starring: Giancarlo Esposito, Rufus Sewel, Paz Vega, Jai Courtney, Tati Gabrielle, Rosaline Elbay, Peter Mark Kendall, Niousha Noor, Jordan Mendoza

Description: Centered around the largest heist ever attempted, the vengeance and betrayals that surround it.

Review: The idea behind the new Netflix show “Kaleidoscope” is quite ambitious: namely the viewer can choose the order of the crime series, which would make the viewing experience different for each person. The concept is fantastic, the execution is pretty mediocre.

Before “Kaleidoscope” begins, you get a notification that you get to decide the order of the series. Therefore, the episodes don’t have a number, but a color. And to give viewers a a hand, Netflix has released the series in different sequences. For me the series started with episode Green, for other it can be Blue or Red and so on. Although you should note that White is always the finale.

The story of “Kaleidoscope” is fairly standard: a group of thieves led by Leo Pap want to rob a heavily guarded vault. How they prepare and why Leo has it in for this particular safe is told in these episodes. The final episode is the actual heist. To keep the storylines clear, each episode stand for a time period. Such as seven years before the heist, five week before the heist and the day after the heist.  

For example, in episode yellow you see how Leo puts together his crew, in Green Leo manages to escape from prison, Orange revolves around an FBI agent hunting the group and in Pink you follow the group six months after the heist. As a result, the episodes are fairly self-contained and it matters little whether you start with Leo’s escape or his plan to rob a safe, because the story remains the same. I think it would have worked better if each episode was the story told from different character’s perspectives. This way, it would be more of a puzzle that would eventually come together. And with that, White is the episode you are supposed to finish on, but I believe Pink is the best episode of the series and the perfect ending.

As a result, “Kaleidoscope” is still entertaining enough, but it’s a pretty standard heist story. It has a great concept, but they could have done so much more with it.