Review: Kaleidoscope

A master thief and his crew attempt an epic heist worth $7 billion, but betrayal, greed and other threats undermine their plans.

Giancarlo Esposito, Paz Vega, Peter Mark Kendall, Rosaline Elbay, and Jai Courtney

As Netflix tends to do, they used "Kaleidoscope" as a way to expand the possibilities of what you can do with television. Creating a show that can be watched in any episodic order is definitely in interesting concept, but it makes it hard to show character arcs and depth when every episode is a pilot.

The story itself is overall quite generic. The characters are all interesting and there's some good yet predictable twists throughout. Giancarlo Esposito is fantastic as always and really carries the show on his back. He is obviously the main character and you really get to dive into his mind and understand his motivations which makes him a lot more relatable.

This shows biggest issue is unfortunately it's biggest draw. While all the episodes themselves are interesting and unique, There's some obvious trouble linking them together. The show would have benefited from a regular series structure as there's a lot of elements that have to be repeated. To an average viewer the show will probably be very confusing as it jumps years at a time with a hard to see goal in the end. You can see how the concept would work from the outside but after watching all the episodes, there's definitely viewing orders that would be even more confusing.

The actual plot and heist is genuinely a lot of fun. Its very unique and everyone plays a legit part and no one feels forced in. As everything culminates in the static final episode, it stands above the rest as the most well thought out and constructed. The series definitely has its ups and down but overall keeps the same tone and everyone is quite smooth throughout.

While "Kaleidoscope" is a unique concept with an overall gripping story, its at time messy and disconnected. A stellar cast and interesting plot can't save everything, not to mention an all but fantastic plot twist in the finale. Netflix definestly dropped the ball on what could have been one of 2023s best heists.