Colorful Confusion: Netflix’s new interactive series is disappointing and confusing, offering little more than a nonsensical order of episodes

The Ocean’s series, “Now You See Me,” “Knives Out” — Netflix has added another to the long list of shows and movies that make up the expansive criminal mystery genre. 

The new Netflix original “Kaleidoscope” follows a crew of savvy criminals attempting to pull off an epic heist and steal $7 million dollars from a secure vault, but their plans are thwarted by greed and betrayal. 

The most intriguing aspect is that the episodes don’t need to be watched in chronological order. The order is displayed differently in everyone’s queue based on your watch history, or algorithm. There are also alternative orders curated by @netflixgeeked such as the Tarantino or Rainbow order to supposedly give the show a different vibe with each watch. According to TikTok, the only general rule is that “White,” the heist episode must be watched last.

My Netflix had the order “Orange,” “Yellow,” “Green,” “Blue,” “Violet,” “Red,” “Pink” and lastly, “White.” Overall, I’m happy with the order my storyline followed, but the 30 year timeline made the show confusing nonetheless.

Each episode is assigned a color along with a moment in time surrounding the main heist. The whole episode is expertly coordinated based on the title color — for example, everything down to the flashdrive in “Yellow” is yellow. 

However, I wish the episodes were titled both the color and when it took place surrounding the heist, instead of simply flashing the time stamp for a second at the beginning of the episode. It’s easy to get confused 25 minutes in and it becomes difficult to remember if these events are taking place five days or seven years before the main heist. 

I tried to watch an episode each day over a week in a vain attempt to absorb every detail, but the way the timeline jumps around — regardless of the order you watch in — made the show difficult to follow the plot and pick up on details crucial to the main heist like the bees or the bloody handprint. I ended up having to restart four episodes in and just binge the whole series in one day — for the record, I’m still a little confused.  

A few things the show does have going for it is that the cast is solid and the episodes were never boring. 

Every role was believable and no one was overacting. Also, the actors were obviously experienced, but the cast wasn’t just loaded up with A-list celebrities so I only knew them as the character, not as famous actors who are critically acclaimed for other roles that I’d get distracted thinking of them as. 

Each episode focuses primarily on one or two characters and has its own mini-heist. Though this kept my attention and made the series interesting, it was ultimately unfocused. Each episode seemed independent from the others, leading to an anticlimactic main heist. 

Furthermore, there was zero chemistry within the crew. In every single group scene the characters were either separated or in the midst of violent outbursts. With crime movies and shows like “Kaleidoscope,” I find it most enjoyable to watch when the crew is a collection of misfit criminals who are first and foremost a wholesome friend group. These people all just hated and betrayed each other. 

It simply wasn’t satisfying to watch. Everything felt so disconnected and messy, I wasn’t attached to any of the characters and things didn’t tie together in a satisfying bow. Motives were clear but it wasn’t a clean conclusion. 

I wanted a closing scene akin to Sandra Bullock descending the Met steps with a smirk of triumph and all I got was a dude holding a necklace.