Kaleidoscope Watch Order: Netflix Reveals Four Ways to Watch New Series

Whoever is responsible for running Netflix’s Twitter account says that they have come up with “a bunch of different orders to watch Kaleidoscope in so you don’t have to.” The series, which stars Breaking Bad and Star Wars franchise veteran Giancarlo Esposito, is filmed in such a way that you can watch it in more or less any order and it should make sense, which of course is opening the series up to being moved around into personalized playlists, so that people can enjoy it in an order that suits their taste.

Each episode is named a different color — “Yellow”, “Green”, “Violet”, “Blue”, “Orange”, “Red”, “Pink”, and the finale, “White”, which is the actually day of the heist — and that titling convention gives a quick, handy way to discuss the order.

Here’s what they came up with:

To watch in chronological order (which, again, is not the order that Netflix presents the series in), you should know what the colors actually are. As clarified by Netflix, “Violet” is 24 years before the heist, “Green” is 7 years before, “Yellow” is 5 weeks before, “Orange” is 3 weeks before, “Blue” is five days before, “White” is the day of the heist. The morning after is “Red,” and “Pink” is six months after the heist.

Watching it “as a Tarantino film” plays on the filmmaker’s well-known tendency to jump around in time, especially starting a story in media res and filling in the background after the movie is already in motion. Watching it that way, you start with “Blue,” then go “Green,” “Yellow,” “Orange,” “Violet,” “Pink,” “White,” and finally “Red.”

Watching it “as Orange is the New Black” starts seven years before (“Green”), and then goes even farther back (“Violet”) before moving up in time. From there, it’s “Red,” “Orange,” “Yellow,” “Blue,” “White,” and “Pink.”

Watching Kaleidoscope as a “classic detective story” starts three weeks before the heist with “Orange,” and then moves through “Green” and “Violet” in flashback, catching up to “Red,” and then rounding out the story with “Yellow,” “Blue,” “White,” and “Pink.”

Here’s the official synopsis for the series:

Spanning 25 years, Kaleidoscope (previously titled Jigsaw) is an all-new anthology series following a crew of masterful thieves and their attempt to crack a seemingly unbreakable vault for the biggest payday in history. Guarded by the world’s most powerful corporate security team, and with law enforcement on the case, every episode reveals a piece of an elaborate puzzle of corruption, greed, vengeance, scheming, loyalties and betrayals. How did the crew of thieves plan it? Who gets away with it? Who can be trusted?

Loosely inspired by the real-life story where seventy billion dollars in bonds went missing in downtown Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy (remember Hurricane Heist?), Kaleidoscope consists of eight episodes spanning from 24 years before the heist to 6 months after.

The compelling crime anthology series takes a non-linear approach to storytelling, building intrigue and suspense uniquely, with Netflix members each having a different immersive viewing experience. Some members may start with certain episodes (like episodes “Yellow or “Green”), then move deeper into their own personal viewing order with varying episodes (“Blue” or “Violet” or “Orange,” followed by “Red” or “Pink”) until the epic “White: The Heist” story finale.

All viewers will eventually see all episodes, but the order in which they watch the episodes will affect their viewpoint on the story, the characters, and the questions and answers at the heart of the heist. How will you experience the colors of Kaleidoscope?