Tiger King

Tiger King (subtitled in marketing as Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness for its first season, Tiger King 2 for its second season and Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story for its third season) is an American true crime documentary television series about the life of former zookeeper and convicted felon Joe Exotic. The first season was released on Netflix on March 20, 2020. A second season, Tiger King 2, was announced in September 2021 and was released on November 17, 2021, while a third season, Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story, was announced on December 3, 2021, and released one week later on December 12. The series focuses on the small but deeply interconnected society of big cat conservationists such as Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue, and collectors such as Exotic, whom Baskin accuses of abusing and exploiting wild animals.

Season 1 received positive reviews from critics, and according to Nielsen ratings, was watched by 34.3 million people over its first ten days of release, ranking as one of Netflix's most successful releases to date, partly due to its release amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and also inspired several memes online. Despite its success and popularity, the season received criticism from conservation and animal rights groups for its framing and inaccuracies related to private breeding and wildlife conservation issues. A special aftershow hosted by Joel McHale was released on April 12, 2020, with McHale interviewing several of its subjects about Exotic and the series itself. The second and third seasons in contrast received mostly negative reviews from fans and critics, and the former was subject of a lawsuit by Carole and Howard Baskin over footage used in the series.

Summary

The series explores the deeply interconnected community of big cat conservationists and collectors in America, and the private zoos and animal sanctuaries they have set up for the care and public display of these animals.

The series' primary subject in the first season is "Tiger King" Joe Exotic, the eccentric owner of the G.W. Zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and follows his bitter years-long feud with Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida. The season later records the events leading up to Exotic's conviction under federal murder-for-hire statutes, when it comes to light that he paid a hitman to murder Baskin; his convictions also included violations of the Lacey Act and Endangered Species Act, and resulted in a 22-year federal prison sentence.

The second season covers the immediate aftermath of Exotic's imprisonment, as well as exploring further theories surrounding the disappearance of Don Lewis. It also explores the downfall of big cat collectors Tim Stark and Jeff Lowe. The ending of the season features a tribute to Erik Cowie, an employee at the G.W. Zoo who died in September 2021.

The series' primary subject in the third season is Mahamayavi Bhagavan "Doc" Antle, a rival of Exotic's and Baskin's, exploring his cult of employment.

Cast

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness (2020)

Special: The Tiger King and I (2020)

Season 2: Tiger King 2 (2021)

Season 3: The Doc Antle Story (2021)

Subjects

Reception

Critical response

Season 1

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the first series holds an approval rating of 89% based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.88/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "A bizarre true crime story you have to see to believe, Tiger King is a messy and captivating portrait of obsession gone terribly wrong." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream publications, the series has an average score of 75 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Variety magazine's Caroline Framke called the season "messy yet compelling" and that for "those who love Netflix's particular flavor of true crime and docuseries, [...] Tiger King will undoubtedly scratch a particular itch." Joshua Rivera at The Verge said that "[e]very minute of Tiger King yields some new surprise, an unbelievable turn or charismatic stranger with incredible stories to tell."

Although the season had a positive reception overall, the special aftershow hosted by McHale received criticism.

Season 2

The second series received mostly negative reviews, holding an approval rating of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 4.10/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "With nothing substantive to add save for a salacious celebration of its first season's success, this kitty has no claws."

Kristen Lopez of IndieWire said that second series has a story that "feels like it's being made up in the moment" and that "Netflix's second season of Tiger King feels like a blatant grab for cash". Brian Lowry of CNN also criticized the second series for failing to move the story on from the first series, saying: "Adding relatively little to the story, and jumping all over the place, the project is mostly defined by how self-referential it is." In a review in The Times, Liam Fay noted the season suffered from the lack of participation from Carole Baskin, saying that "her contributions are taken from her YouTube channel, an eerily stilted production in which she reads her diaries directly to camera", and: "Almost every theory ever concocted about Lewis's fate is explored at length. In the end we're none the wiser, a familiar aftertaste throughout the season."

Season 3

Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story holds an approval rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 5 reviews. Jordan Moreau of Variety wrote that "despite its serious subject matter, 'The Doc Antle Story' can't match the inherent, attention-grabbing, plot-twisty nature of the first [season]."

Audience viewership

According to Nielsen, the first season was watched by 34.3 million people over its first 10 days of release, ranking as one of Netflix's most successful releases to date. It has been suggested that its viewership success was aided by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused many global viewers to be restricted to their homes around the time of its release. At their Q2 report meeting in July 2020, Netflix reported the first season had been viewed by 64 million households over its first month of release.

Political reception

At an April press conference regarding COVID-19, then-U.S. President Donald Trump was questioned about the possibility of pardoning the series' key subject, Joe Exotic. Trump said he was unaware of him and the series but told the reporter that he'd "take a look". In January 2021, prior to the inauguration of Joe Biden, Trump pardoned several different people, but Exotic was not one of them. Exotic tweeted that he was "too innocent and too gay" to receive a pardon from Trump.

Criticism for depiction of conservation issues

Animal welfare groups, conservation organizations and wildlife biologists have criticized the series and its filmmakers.

Several conservation and animal rights groups criticized the filmmakers for framing private big cat breeding as a legitimate form of conservation. Representatives from Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wide Fund for Nature, Panthera Corporation and National Geographic criticized the show for its equivocation of the unregulated private breeding with captive breeding for species reintroduction, highlighting that the latter is strictly controlled by the Species Survival Plan and only takes place in zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Privately bred cats cannot be reintroduced to the wild as several of the private breeders interviewed suggested, as they would be unlikely to survive in the wild, and are likely hybrids which could cause genetic pollution.