Kaleidoscope is an American heist drama television miniseries created by Eric Garcia. The eight-part series is an episodic anthology with standalone episodes. It centers on master thief Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito) and his crew attempting an epic heist worth $7 billion, but betrayal, greed and other threats undermine their plans. Kaleidoscope was released on January 1, 2023, by Netflix.
The eight episodes can be watched in any order. An introduction ("Black") explains the show's concept. The episodes are listed here in the order listed on Netflix's Tudum page.
On September 16, 2021, it was revealed that Netflix had given an eight-episode order for the series, then titled Jigsaw. Eric Garcia serves as creator, writer, and executive producer, along with EPs Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Jordan Sheehan, Fred Berger, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Justin Levy, and Russell Fine. The series is produced by Scott Free Productions and Automatik Entertainment. It was announced that Everardo Gout and Mairzee Almas would each direct two episodes. It was also announced Robert Townsend would direct multiple episodes of the series. The series is structured in a non-linear order so that viewers can choose the order in which they watch the episodes leading up to the finale.
Alongside the series announcement, Giancarlo Esposito, Paz Vega, Rufus Sewell, Tati Gabrielle, Peter Mark Kendall, Rosaline Elbay, Jai Courtney, Niousha Noor, and Jordan Mendoza were cast.
Filming began at Netflix Studios in Bushwick, Brooklyn on September 1, 2021. It is the first production at the Bushwick studio. Filming also took place at 28 Liberty in Manhattan's financial district. The series wrapped on March 16, 2022.
The series was officially titled Kaleidoscope in November 2022 when its release date was set for January 1, 2023.
Each episode bears a title associated with a hue or color, which distinctly relates to the main element of that particular episode. The story spans from twenty-four years before the heist to six months after the heist. Netflix tweeted suggestions of different orders in which viewers could watch the episodes; for example, as a Quentin Tarantino film, referencing nonlinear films of his like Pulp Fiction; or as a classic detective story. Netflix's approach of presenting the first seven episodes in any order followed by the White episode allows for 5,040 (7!) permutations. Watching all episodes (including "White") in any order allows for a total of 40,320 (8!). However, Dais Johnston of Inverse noticed that Netflix's recommended orders always ended with "Red" and "Pink" before "White", hinting at 120 (5!) permutations.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 50% approval rating with an average rating of 6.4/10, based on 35 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "While Kaleidoscope interactive storytelling offers some flashy novelty, its color-coded story strands are unfortunately all in service to a disappointingly pedestrian plot." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 59 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".