Shifting Perspectives- Viewing Order Comparison

[Guest]

What order did you watch and how did it impact your enjoyment? Is this really a show that can be watched in any order? 
 
This thread will contain spoilers for season 1. If you haven’t yet watched the show and want to discuss viewed order without being spoiled you can do so in the Viewing Order Recommendations thread. 

[Cranberry]

I've been watching with the Vulture guy's preferred order (Yellow, Violet, Orange, Green, Blue, Red, Pink, White) and it's worked okay for me, although after watching Pink I kind of have no desire to watch the actual heist. I still will, but it's like, if I know how it all ends, what's the point?

I can't imagine caring about this show if I'd randomly watched Pink first.

[ribboninthesky1]

I didn't know anything about the shuffled order of the episodes until I started watching. My order was:

• Yellow
• Green
• Orange
• Violet
• Blue
• Red
• Pink
• White

Which differed from the the Vulture-recommended order in that Violet and Green were switched.  Since I was pretty close to the "ideal" order, it worked for me.  Red was probably the weakest episode for me because it felt the most gimmicky, unnatural.  

The more interesting aspect of the series was no happy ending for anyone, really.  Not even Hannah, although I know I should think otherwise.

 

[AZChristian]

We just watched them in the order they came up on our screen.  Although we didn't HATE the randomization, I think we may go back and re-view it in chronological order.

[AZChristian]

We have now watched it in both ways - randomized and then chronological.  For us, the chronological was definitely better.  The way it was recommended by several sites online, the last episode (White) was the only one that was technically out of order, but it was good that way because it went back and filled in some blanks.

[Starry-Eyed]

On 1/7/2023 at 9:05 AM, AZChristian said:

We have now watched it in both ways - randomized and then chronological.  For us, the chronological was definitely better.  The way it was recommended by several sites online, the last episode (White) was the only one that was technically out of order, but it was good that way because it went back and filled in some blanks.

Did you like Violet being first? I think it's kind of a weak episode on its own and probably works better as backstory once you are invested a little into the characters.

[AZChristian]

1 hour ago, Starry-Eyed said:

Did you like Violet being first? I think it's kind of a weak episode on its own and probably works better as backstory once you are invested a little into the characters.

Since I had already seen the whole series in random order, I was already invested in the characters. We spent a lot of time the second time around saying, "Okay, NOW that part makes sense."

[FormerMod-a1]

I hit "play episodes" and let Netflix decide my order (i.e. I didn't go into episode list and pick the top one and play from there).  This is the order I ended up with.  I think it worked quite well, I don't know if another random order would be better (not that they'd necessarily be worse, though).  The 5 days before kind of set the stage and then it was series of flashbacks that filled in the details of the relationships, and then the last 3 were about the heist.  Morning after you see it didn't go as planned, 6 months after you see they are all splintered and things aren't going well for any of them, and then the actual heist filling in the details, many of which I had kind of guessed already but it was still a nice capper.  I don't think I would like ending on Pink - I found it all so sad, even though they are the bad guys, really.

Blue - 5 days before
Green - 7 years before
Yellow - 6 weeks before
Orange - 3 weeks before
Violet - 24 years before
Red - morning after heist
Pink - 6 months after heist
White - the heist

[xander874]

I wonder how "random" this order is. I feel like most people who watch it the way Netflix assigns them is getting mostly the same order, especially the Red, Pink, White final 3 (what I got too). I do think Yellow, which was my first, was a great episode to start on because you got a little bit of all the characters and the connection between Hannah and Ray. I feel I would've been lost with some of the others as the first because character development was minimal at times.

I wish they had combined Red and Pink into one episode and had another pre-heist one where we got some additional character development (RJ???).