"Tiger King" | Netflix TV Review

After multiple friends and even my sister badgering me to watch this show I gave in and decided to binge watch the entire show. Of course with the current lock-down helped me binge watch the entire show in one sitting. Sat here writing this (the next day to be exact), I'm still trying to decide how I even truly feel about this bizarre documentary; but lets see what comes out of my head as I write this.

I'll start off by saying there are spoilers, but I'll keep it to one area of the review which will be called out so you can avoid it!

Initial reaction...

Like most people who first start watching this, all I could think was "what in the hell am I watching". From the first episode I was met with gun-toting red-knecks raising giant tigers and screaming profanities at each other. I could help but smile as these living stereotypes introduced themselves, making very weird attempts to defend all the actions that flashed across the screen.

Throughout the show I had to remind myself that I was watching a documentary and not some drug-induced hallucination. I'll give the creators credit, they turned what has got to be the strangest group of people and turn their story into a fascinating and well constructed series of events. With the structure being one of the main points that made me like the show.

It is constructed in a way whereby you are introduced to one specific person. From here the episode revolves around a specific story to do with that person, of course each story was very twisted and illegal. It gave the audience a clear insight into who these people were, while allowing other episodes to reveal more layers of the overall story and personalities of these people.

What did I enjoy?

• Surprisingly informative - as each episode came and went, and the story went deeper and weirder, there was a sense that it was going to lose track of what the overall ambition of the documentary was all about... the Big Cats. All the stories in the documentary around these people is centred on their goal to own these beautiful creatures, when at the end of the day the cats deserve to be in the wild. The series starts and ends with some startling facts about America's inability to face their failure in protecting these creatures, insofar to becoming the country with more big cats in captivity than in the wild. Not only is this a dispicable reality, but the people the documentary focuses on blindly announcing themselves as the only people who care about these animals without realising the hypocrasy of their words, just makes the whole thing entirely laughable.

• Pretty cohesive and well structured - With so many big and outrageous characters it could've been really easy to spin off the rails, but I think that everyone involved did a wonderful job in creating this documentary. Even with murder plots starting to unfold and red-necks blasting guns so close to the camera it was terrifying, it was still easy to follow what was happening and still maintained an entertaining feel.

The horror behind the entertainment...

!SPOILERS AHEAD!

Now, as much as I found myself laughing and being entertained by this show. I just can't write about it all without mentioning the very real horrors that unfolded, especially when it seems social media seem to not really focus on it.

The moment I'm talking about is when Travis Maldonado, Joe Exotic (the "Tiger King")'s husband, shoots himself in the head. The footage is shocking to say the least, honestly I'm surprised they actually showed it. I had to pause the show; I couldn't believe that we had just witnessed someone, who seemed mainly harmless shot themselves and by accident.

It was only after this happened that the dark reality of these people came to light. As hilarious and outrageous as they are, there is no escaping the fact that they're all master manipulators; and it ruined people's lives. Even in the end, they interview one of the former zoo keepers, he was a broken man, drunk and crying over his lost animals. Was he drunk through other means? or was he another victim not given enough credit.

!SPOILERS ENDED!

In the end...

Netflix have definitely done it again by providing us with yet another thrilling and social media worthy documentary. Despite the flaws in highlighting the devastation behind some of these peoples actions, I still found this documentary enlightening and enjoyable to watch. With the recent announcement that another episode is due out at the end of this week, I wait with eager anticipation to see what else will be revealed.