Netflix always offers a variety of entertainment from romance and drama to mystery and action, but many shows on that platform have repetitive and overused tropes. The new release “Kaleidoscope” fits right into that category of Netflix.

The main story follows a criminal group led by Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito) preparing and executing a major heist. The series presents a mysterious vibe by slowly giving the viewers information about the heist until they can connect the dots. Each episode was named a different color and was set at a different point in time over the course of multiple years. The show’s biggest selling factor was that the viewer can pick the order they watch the episodes.

While this seems like a good idea, many small details ruined multiple big moments in the show including the actual heist and the events leading to it. Extremely boring, repetitive and even basic costume design led to a disaster of a show. The little mistakes proved to be a big distraction. A memorable moment was about 15 minutes of different people receiving calls with information regarding the heist. This incredibly long execution brought a very immature aspect to the writing.

A heist or action movie should move at a fast pace and keep the viewers on their feet. Many predictable actions and unnecessarily long scenes that would slowly feed viewer information could convince someone that this show was written with little attention. A slower paced show is not always a horrible thing but has no place in a heist.

Some people would say that the protagonist should present as a likable character that solves or attempts to solve an issue. The main protagonist in “Kaleidoscope” does none of that. He was a very bitter, rude criminal at heart character which only left me hating him and the rest of his team.

There were few entertaining aspects, but even then, the show was overrun with basic mistakes. The costume design and especially the wig designs were not up to standard. The wigs looked so funny that I was left wondering if that was on purpose or not. I was able to clearly see each wig and what the actor’s hair was like underneath. A generally bland and uninteresting design of each character did not help this either.

I honestly had a lot of hope for this show after first hearing about it. The color scheme and random ordering idea had a ton of potential as well. An abundance of detail mistakes completely ruined the show from the start. I would not recommend this show to anyone looking for a fast paced heist show.

Contact Ian Humphreys at [email protected]