Social Distancing Entertainment: Tiger King
Last week, I was combing through my Facebook news feed in an attempt to cure any of my late afternoon boredom. Amidst scrolling through, I saw two words that piqued my interest: Tiger King. Almost instantly, I started to realize that it wasn’t only my news feed that was talking about the Netflix docuseries. News articles, tweets, and memes about the show were suddenly popping up more and more, brewing an internal urge for me to dive deep into whatever constitutes a “tiger king.” On Wednesday, I sat down with my family to watch an episode. At 1am on Thursday, we finished the final three episodes, feeling as if we’ve just watched an insane trainwreck only reality could create.
In this current pandemic, I honestly cannot think of a better example of “bingeable TV” than the seven-episode limited series from Netflix. While Netflix’s original films, in terms of quality, range from Beasts of No Nation to The Kissing Booth, their documentaries (and docuseries) have thankfully had more consistency in their quality. Directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin do an absolutely phenomenal job compiling so many testimonies, events, and pasts to create a cohesive, insane story that (for some people) spans decades prior to the rise and fall of eccentric zookeeper Joe Exotic. There’s even an entire episode dedicated to Joe’s “rival” Carole Baskins, an advocate for exotic jungle cats that has a complicated past of her own. From cult-like zoo environments to state elections, the show tackles so many topics that it could honestly take one of them and make its own seven-episode series because Tiger King is brimming with personality, intrigue, unintentional comedy, and even darkness.
What makes Tiger King such a blast to watch is that each episode feels like it’s shaking the foundation in its own way. Whether it’s a traumatic event or a new player in Exotic’s life, each episode has moments that’ll make you crack up, get roped in even more, or make your jaw drop. Exotic is such a captivating character that the documentary can constantly jump to the present, slightly spoiling certain story elements without ruining the experience. The journey alone has enough twists and turns to make the jumps to the present feel like the equivalent of looking at a finished puzzle’s picture while only being halfway done. Sure, it gives you an idea of where the story is going but there’s no way to predict the ridiculous events that’ll lead there.
Netflix’s Tiger King is far from perfect (I personally find the ending to be somewhat anticlimactic) but when placed at a point in time where the government is telling us to stay at home, it’s the perfect show for people trying to fight boredom and the lack of face-to-face interactions. It’s brought people together in a way only a pandemic like this could create, creating laughs and conversations that I don’t really think would’ve been as frequent if not for our current situation. Tiger King is in that sweet spot between quality and trashy TV, taking colorful characters and turning their reality TV-esque antics into a surprisingly engaging epic that spans multiple characters, decades of backstory, and a myriad of jungle cats. There are better shows on Netflix but, when it comes to this newfound distance, there’s nothing better to take the edge off like the wild ride of Tiger King.