Tiger King

Ten Second Review: A roller coaster docu-series that continues to keep you on your toes until the very end. Remaining scintillating without actually having a redeemable protagonist, this is certainly a slam dunk for Netflix.

I’m not one for binge watching TV. I have no qualm with those that do and I do understand the appeal, but past a couple of hours of episodes I generally fall off and want to watch or do something else. Tiger King may have changed that. Its been a while since I’ve watched a documentary series that was gripping to the point of having to stop myself watching literally every episode in one day (mostly to save my eyes form like 6 hours of screen time).

Tiger King follows the increasingly dramatic tale of Joe Exotic and the other larger than life figures of America’s privately owning big cat community. Filled with murder, scandal and more kinks and twists that a neglected hose pipe, Tiger King keeps audiences guessing from beginning to end.

I became familiar with Joe Exotic about four years ago. On an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver covering third parties in the 2016 US election, he showed a short clip of one of Joe’s campaign ads and even in that 20 seconds you were just enamored and curious about what the story behind him could be. Claiming to have the biggest private big cat zoo in the world , I couldn’t help but look in to it. After perusing his bizarre campaign and looking at the cluster-fuck of a website for the zoo, I tapped out and went back to John Oliver, but even in that short dive, you could feel how deep the story of Joe Exotic was. When I saw this trailer pop up I thought it would be a very niche series that I would quietly enjoy. I was quite obviously wrong.

At this point the easily identifiable Netflix style of documentary is in danger of feeling trite. No matter the subject, the construction is recognisable and while built to be engaging, can sometimes fade into the melding of all their documentary series. That’s not to say they aren’t informative, or that they don’t find new and amazing subjects to cover, but that the style is in danger of feeling tired.

I would hazard a guess that half the success of Tiger King has been in the juxtaposition of the overtly serious Netflix style and the sheer ridiculousness of the story being told. There could certainly be a cut of this that plays it more like the Trailer Park Boys. It would feel like a comedy (with a considerable true crime tilt) and would read in a wholly unremarkable fashion. The absurd developments, and the order the story is told in, really pair well with this now accepted documentary style. If Netflix had released this on April 1st it would read and feel like a joke.

One of the major successes of the docu-series is the fact it manages to be compelling without ever having a truly redeemable (and arguably even relatable) character. Its a rogues gallery of characters you distrust and don’t like to differing degrees throughout. This is only amplified by a story that gets continually deeper and weirder by the minute. Just when you have it sussed they’ll say “and that’s when shit really hit the fan” or “and obviously it only got crazier from there” and true to their word, it reaches a new height.

A fated release time and a truly incredible story has made this series the perfect talking point for the current time. I highly recommend this surreal break from reality.