Here’s a little secret about this article: you can read it in any order you see fit. Shuffle around the paragraphs. Read it back to front. Skip to the second half and then go back and read the introduction. It’ll make sense enough, more or less. But why exactly anyone would want to do this is another matter – these words are arranged in this order for a reason. Mixing them up would be pointless. Maybe someone should tell this to Netflix, or the creators of their latest hit series, Kaleidoscope.
The eight-part drama – released on Netflix last week, and currently sitting atop the Top 10 most-watched TV chart – tells the story of Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito), an expert thief who is planning the heist of a lifetime. Kaleidoscope flashes through different points in time, with some episodes taking place years before the crime was committed, others in its aftermath. The gimmick is that none of the episodes are intended to be watched in any particular order. Rather than being given episode numbers, the eight chapters are assigned colours (Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, Violet, Red, Pink, and White). Viewers can then spin this televisual colour wheel in whichever direction they wish: the only recommendation is to probably leave White – the finale, with a bombshell plot development – until last. According to better mathematicians than myself, that makes for a possible 40,000 different combinations of episodes.
