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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
15
Mixed:
7
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews
Mar 23, 2020
Season 1 Review:
At first glance, Tiger King may look like another Fyre Fest-esque documentary: a catastrophic series of events that are easy to laugh at thanks to the hot-mess egomaniac at the center of it all. But audiences should prepare themselves for some deeply distressing moments of darkness uncovered in Joe Exotic's story.
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Apr 1, 2020
Season 1 Review:
What unfolds from this years-long scrimmage is too delicious to give away, but it involves a cast of colorful oddballs living on the fringes of society. ... “Tiger King” exposes the furry underbelly of a big-cat community I’d never known about, in which the lines between loving wild animals and exploiting them are never quite clear. In the end, I felt queasy at what I had seen, but the time sure had flown.
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Apr 1, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The Netflix documentary is so horrifically addicting you’ll be like a cat at feeding time. Never mind some of the seven-part series’ editing or focus. The production pulls you in because the characters are so unabashedly brazen. They don’t just talk about their hatred. They openly demonstrate it, helping you understand a layer of society you never knew existed.
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Mar 25, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Tiger King is genuinely compulsive viewing, although those who are sensitive to depictions of animal abuse should be warned that while we don’t see that much of it, it’s sometimes described in graphic detail. ... As with a lot of compulsions, indulging it may not leave you feeling satisfied as much as spent, with a vague feeling of having done something that’s not entirely healthy.
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Mar 19, 2020
Season 1 Review:
At its most profound—and engrossing—Tiger King is a portrait of a world that’s entirely alien, and yet also reflective, and diagnostic, of this country as a whole. It’s funny, and creepy, and frustrating, and, in the longview, pretty sad. Which feels just about exactly right at this particular juncture in our national experiment.
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The PlaylistNov 18, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The twists are so wild that it would only make sense if this were scripted, but you have to remind yourself this isn’t a reality show. It’s very much a documentary. Only now, it’s about what the audience wants just as much as what it captures within these new celebrities.
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Mar 20, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Though the story begins with their respective love for their animals, “Tiger King” quickly devolves into the complex and downright bizarre tale of the rivalry between Joe Exotic and Baskin, the outsize characters of the big cat collecting world, and the dangerous cults of personality that fuel all of the above.
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Mar 19, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The doc feels like it started life as a message film, lost the thread completely and ended up, especially in its closing installments, with a lot of hastily unfolding plot. It's a series that might, in its ideal form, have been a substantive and nourishing meal, but premieres on Netflix as a yummy bag of potato chips. ... I'll leave it to the directors to decide whether, amid what may be turn out to be great popularity for the show, they miss the desired nutritional value.
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Radio TimesDec 3, 2021
Season 2 Review:
While Tiger King 2 is definitely not as addictive as its record-breaking predecessor and tends to jump manically from subject to subject at an almost-overwhelming speed, the second season of this Netflix juggernaut is definitely worth watching if you’re a true crime fanatic who is still fascinated by the chaotic world of Joe Exotic and his big cat kingdom.
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The GuardianNov 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Exotic is in prison, so there are no fresh shots of him with his snaggly grin and straggly mane. Episode one gets round this by delving into his early life. ... The last two instalments return to Joe Exotic, and whether his conviction for conspiring to murder Baskin is sound.
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Mar 20, 2020
Nov 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
We’re just not sure that this is anything but a money grab by them and Netflix. ... We still recommend it to anyone who watched the first season and wants to find out more. But, it certainly isn’t essential watching to anyone, whether they liked the first season or were repulsed by it.
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Nov 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
While it initially lucked into a charismatic cast that captured the nation’s attention at a truly unique moment in history, at its core, “Tiger King” is a middling true-crime series on a streaming service chock full of the same, that furthermore lacks the attention span to dig deeper into the crucial context of its many, many stories.
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The Daily BeastNov 17, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Those who found themselves entranced by the spectacle of Tiger King’s original release will find even more unbelievable stories and visuals to gawk at here. ... Haphazard reporting and feverish pacing makes it difficult to distinguish the details that might be true from those that are almost certainly false. But the mere fact that this series spends most of its time in that swampy gray area is a big problem on its own.
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The IndependentNov 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Somehow, they stretch it to five episodes, going over the death of Carole’s second husband, Don Lewis, whom Joe and his crew suspect was murdered by Baskin, and looking at what Jeff Lowe, who took over the park after Joe’s imprisonment, has done with the business. It’s all icky.
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The TelegraphNov 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Goode and Chaiklin dig up plenty of dirt on Lewis and his seemingly dodgy dealings in Costa Rica (including, one acquaintance claims, sleeping with underage girls), but it only adds to the feeling that this is a tawdry affair that leaves no one enlightened. ... It’s a mess.
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