David Farnor | On 06, Mar 2022

Tiger King. Remember Tiger King? That was all anyone could talk about at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, as viewers around the world dove into the apparently deranged true crime antics of two rival big cat businesses, Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin. It was pulpy, shocking and perfectly engineered to become a binge-watching sensation. Since then, Baskin has sued Netflix for its portrayal of her, while a second, follow-up season was released with much fanfare but even more waning interest. The moment, such as it was, had passed.

And yet, several months on, we’re once again being invited to relive the events that unfolded as Joe and Carole went head to head – this time, as a dramatic series. Based on the 2020 Wondery podcast, and written by Etan Frankel (Shameless, Friday Night Lights), it introduces us to the larger-than-life Joe Exotic, whose roadshow of big cats is more about showmanship than stewardship, and animal rights activist Baskin, who sets out to expose Joe’s methods and animal-keeping conditions.

John Cameron Mitchell dials it up to 11 as Joe, enjoying the flamboyance while also searching for some kind of pathos. Kate McKinnon is also suitably over-the-top for such stranger-than-fiction material. But the pair also lean into the characters’ comic potential, which leaves the more serious elements – Kyle MacLachlan plays things straight-faced as Howard Baskin – feeling awkward and out of place.

Unlike Netflix’s documentary, which had the factual format to hold things in one consistent register, this dramatisation isn’t sure how to present any of the saga. And so it finds itself straying repeatedly into caricature territory, despite its clear desire to humanise its central odd couple. The result feels like a cousin of Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, a series examining real-life events turned into sensationalist headlines while struggling to reconcile the fact that, by also mining them for entertainment, it’s doing the same thing. In the all-too-familiar Tiger King arena, this belated addition feels like a faint whimper rather than a gripping roar.

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