- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: Jan 1, 2023
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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But for all its architectural mischief, "Kaleidoscope" would be strictly formulaic if you laid its chapters out in chronological order. Series creator Eric Garcia no doubt had his hands full writing episodes that could all serve as intros without giving away the game entirely and also be engaging enough to get a viewer to do a modicum of mental labor in keeping the story straight. That he has done.
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In practice, Kaleidoscope feels like a slick but forgettable two-hour movie puffed up into a jumbled six-hour saga. The main advantage of its unorthodox structure is that it helps obscure how generic some of its component pieces really are.
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That experimentation with format (a mechanism that Netflix, and other streaming services, have been testing with projects such as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) is the only route by which Kaleidoscope ventures remotely outside the box. Watched in any order, the story that unfolds is a simple, pleasurable rollick through the business of ultra-tight security and the crooks who seek to undo that.
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There’s a clockwork energy to heist stories that’s interrupted here. It lacks the right build-up, but I’m not even sure if watching the episodes in chronological order (a quick internet search will pull up that info) would fix the issue. The pacing’s just off.
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“Kaleidoscope” is admittedly fun at times, playfully bursting into action in ways that aren’t always predictable. There’s a strong energy between the heist crew members that made me wish that “Kaleidoscope” had unfolded in the right order. In the end, the gimmick of “Kaleidoscope” can be singled out as the main culprit for most of the show’s flaws.
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Does the episode shuffling lead to profound insights or startling revelations? It’s all too contrived for that, but there is extra entertainment value in finding out what this person’s relationship with that one was really about, or how what’s in who’s safe altered the course of somebody’s life...More entertaining than bothering to notice every time the color red appears in “Red,” anyway.
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The puzzle-like gimmick at the heart of “Kaleidoscope” – watch the episodes in any order that you want – can’t conceal how otherwise uninspired this “Ocean’s Eleven”-esque heist series actually is. Chalk that up in part to stiffly written characters, familiar situations and drawn-out logistical sequences. It’s moderately watchable, but all told, color me unimpressed.
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Any haunting revelations just aren’t baked in enough to pay off in the way that they could and should have. For all the flickers of intrigue felt in its narrative form, Kaleidoscope is an experiment that proves you will always need a good story to ascend above mere gimmick.
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The issue with Kaleidoscope, though, is that its design is less an ingenious way of moving storytelling forward than the sort of thing a creator, or a streamer, does because it can...The core product just isn’t very good.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 21
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Mixed: 13 out of 21
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Negative: 3 out of 21
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Jan 7, 2023
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Jan 3, 2023
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Jun 14, 2023