Statistically speaking, when there are eight variables that will be placed in any order, there are 40,000 possibilities to its combination and that is exactly the number of ways to watch Netflix's Kaleidoscope but is there a best watch order of the episodes of the series?
What is the Best Episode Order to Watch Netflix's Kaleidoscope?
Netflix's Kaleidoscope has taken the world with a storm, literally, as the series baffled everyone with its main difference to all other shows on the streaming platform -- it can be watched in any order and the story remains the same, just the perspective of the viewer changes.
There are eight episodes for Netflix's Kaleidoscope: Violet: 24 Years Before the Heist, Green: 7 Years Before the Heist, Yellow: 6 Weeks Before The Heist, Orange: 3 Weeks Before the Heist, Blue: 5 Days Before the Heist, White: The Heist, Red: The Morning After the Heist, and Pink: 6 Months After.
Since there is no particular order in watching the series, people started to make their own combinations on how to watch Kaleidoscope which is part of the thrill: deciding which ones should go first and last, which ones in the middle, and so on.
Netflix also made some guides on how to watch Kaleidoscope to help everyone out but still, it remains on the discretion of the viewers whether to follow. There's the chronological order and its reverse order where audience watch the show according to the dates, either starting with Violet, or Pink.
There's an interesting take to watch Kaleidoscope's episode based on the colors of the rainbow, too, and with White not a color to the rainbow, it comes in last.
The creator of Kaleidoscope, Eric Garcia, also reveals the order in which he wrote the series which could be followed by the audience and have the writer's perspective in the show. Speaking with SYFY WIRE, Garcia unveiled his thoughts on the order of episodes.
Garcia said, "We might be introduced to the characters in the 'Blue' episode in one way, but then we would see them differently in the the 'Yellow' episode. And hopefully, what you do as you watch all of them is you get a different viewpoint, you get a different lens."
Garcia appreciated the people watching it on a different perspective, "By the time you're done, you have sort of a holistic version of them; a gestalt view on each of these characters. But hopefully, my theory is, depending on the order you've seen them, your view will be slightly different from mine, because as you come to know somebody, it changes."
Garcia provided a perspective for Roger, the owner of SLS, ""Those are often the ones who you look at and you go, 'Oh, that's the bad guy,' even though yes, the rest of them are thieves. As humans, we have an affinity towards heisters, and I certainly do. And as viewers, I think we naturally take this antagonistic attitude toward that kind of character."
Garcia laid down particular episodes for Roger, "But it was important to me that we see him in a way where you could watch an episode — and I think particularly 'Violet,' 'Blue,' and 'Yellow' — where you can look at Roger, and if you come in at the right part, think 'Okay, I get this guy. I'm on this guy's side.'"
Garcia added, "And then you watch another one and go, 'Wait. I'm not necessarily on his side.' I'd love to be able to do that with all the characters and that was sort of a goal."
Then, there's the view for Bob and Judy as per Garcia, "I have no favorite. But 'Pink' is one of those episodes where I think if you watch it first, you will have a really different viewpoint on Bob and Judy (Rosaline Elbay) and the relationship that he has to the entire thing."
He also laid down a different set for Bob in a different way, "Whereas, if you're watching Bob starting from 'Yellow' or 'Blue,' I think your brain goes to a different place. Of all the little experiments that I'm curious to see how these shake out, that's certainly one of them."
Garcia, then, revealed the first and second episode he wrote, "I wrote the 'Yellow' episode first and I wrote the 'Red' episode second. Then we got the stories up and running all around them, and then it bounced back and forth."
However, Garcia thought that many viewers would start with Blue, "We would be in the elevator with people going to their jobs, and I would fully — nicely, nicely — accost people and go, 'Hey, if you had to pick a favorite color, that would your favorite color be?'"
Garcia further explained, "Weirdly enough, 80 percent percent of people would choose blue. Nobody chose orange although "Orange" is a great place to start the series."
These are the thoughts of the writer of the series, Eric Garcia, who was inspired by a true event where there are actually $70 billion bonds that were lost during Hurricane Katrina and that gave him an idea to make a show out of the event considering the scarcity of the news from that event.
READ MORE: Where Did The Bonds End Up in Netflix's Kaleidoscope?
One of our writers here in EpicStream watched the series as well and the recommendation goes like this: Yellow, Orange, Blue, Green, Violet, White, Red, and Pink.
This is quite a chronological order, something like a "medias res" as what it is technically called. It is the order which starts in the middle of the story, jumps back to the past, before going to the present, then the future.
Such order seems quite fitting, too, as it introduces the characters in Yellow, Orange, and Blue, then seeing their motives and histories in Green and Violet, setting up the events of the heist in White, and then, the aftermath of the heist with Red and Pink. Pink ends their stories and what lies ahead for all of them.
In the end, it all lies on the viewers on which perspective they would want to follow and who among the characters are they putting their bets on. In every experience, out of the 40,000 ways of watching the show, each combination has a different view for the ones watching.
Which episode order do you prefer watching Netflix's Kaleidoscope? See the series now on Netflix.