Wild Wild Country

:

Season 1
  • Network: Netflix
  • Series Premiere Date: Mar 16, 2018
Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 8 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 8
  3. Negative: 0 out of 8
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Critic Reviews

  1. IndieWire
    Reviewed by: Ben Travers
    Mar 16, 2018
    100
    It’s a challenging piece that requires the viewer to acknowledge their own reactions and then question them. In that, Wild Wild Country may be even more vital to a divided nation. It demands you see the other side.
  2. RogerEbert.com
    Reviewed by: Nick Allen
    Mar 16, 2018
    90
    After the six-plus hours of Wild Wild Country flies by, you won't want an approach to this story any different or shorter than what the Ways do. ... By handling this story so intelligently and by opening its heart to a very complicated idea of good and evil, Wild Wild Country has a profound, mesmerizing power itself.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Lloyd
    Mar 16, 2018
    80
    A highly pleasurable new documentary series.
  5. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Jen Chaney
    Mar 16, 2018
    80
    Like most good documentarians, the Ways conduct interviews with key figures in this drama without fully passing judgment on any of them and leaving it up to viewers to draw their own conclusions.
  6. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Daniel Fienberg
    Jan 25, 2018
    80
    Screened at the Sundance Film Festival in one exhausting, gripping gulp, it's a slice of partially forgotten history in which real life just keeps getting more and more outlandish and implausible. ... Wild Wild Country a worthwhile thought experiment in addition to a yarn that is, as the title promises, doubly wild.
  7. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Katie Rife
    Mar 16, 2018
    75
    Wild Wild Country ends up being a character study, an attempt to suss out whether Bhagwan and Sheela really bought what they were selling to white spiritual seekers, making millions in the process. ... That being said, the filmmakers’ tendency to skim over the more unseemly aspects of a story with many unseemly aspects to it may leave viewers wanting to know more about the wilder aspects of the case.
  8. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Mike Hale
    Mar 16, 2018
    70
    [Chapman and Maclain Way] haven’t given it much of a shape or a perspective--they go from one mind-blowing event and image to the next, and seem to just adopt the point of view of whoever’s talking at the moment, reinforcing it with correspondingly bright or sad or triumphant music (which becomes increasingly intrusive). Their own attitude, as far as it can be divined, appears to be a credulous sentimentality. But it is a great story, even if you just turn on the camera and let it roll.
  9. The Daily Beast
    Reviewed by: Nick Schager
    Mar 12, 2018
    70
    In an effort to provide both sides of the story, the directors--especially in late, slow-motion-drenched elegiac passages full of uplifting and/or mournful music—buy too much of the pap being sold by the sannyasins. ... As a portrait of militant zeal and religious conflict, Wild Wild Country is a fascinating glimpse at the perils of fanaticism-run-amok and the contentious intersection between faith and freedom.

Awards & Rankings

33
#33 Best TV Season of 2018
55
#55 Most Discussed TV Season of 2018

User Reviews

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User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 55 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 55
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 55
  3. Negative: 7 out of 55
  1. EludiumQ36
    Mar 24, 2018
    2
    So much potential but dies in execution. Those raving about it are Netflix shills, in my most generous estimation this rates no more than aSo much potential but dies in execution. Those raving about it are Netflix shills, in my most generous estimation this rates no more than a six. This would've been GREAT as a serialized docu-drama but instead it's a straight-up, let's do boring interviews of old people from that time period and splice in shaky, low-def film-strip quality video footage from long ago, ugh. So much wasted potential. It also fails to capture WHY there was so much fascination with the Bagwan Rasneesh. Seriously, he was an old, balding man who possessed no powers/abilities or even the gift of gab, the documentary utterly fails to help us understand why he was such a draw besides his own meek statement that "before, I was asleep, now I'm awake." Wow, let's drop what we're doing and follow this guy around India and then on to Oregon, really?! I couldn't make it past the third hour of this wasted effort.… Full Review »
  2. OlivierPiel
    Mar 19, 2018
    9
    I was very apprehensive at the start but this is a really great show, and not a mere documentary. It's long but very well organized, scripted.I was very apprehensive at the start but this is a really great show, and not a mere documentary. It's long but very well organized, scripted.
    It cleverly makes us think about the current political situation in America....and turn the tables on the usual clichés of the so-called open-minded "liberals" versus the obtuse conservative America. It shows that the devil is in all of us and cannot be just pinned to the "other"....    … Full Review »
  3. JLuis_001
    Mar 27, 2018
    7
    I was 13 when I decided to step aside from any religion or spiritual stuff and that is because I believe religion is the worst disease theI was 13 when I decided to step aside from any religion or spiritual stuff and that is because I believe religion is the worst disease the human race ever had.
    I respect the decision of all people to believe in some sort of deity, if it makes them happy, go ahead but for me it has always been a burden.

    What happened in this place didn't really have something to do with religion per se but it does have to do with one of it's worst elements; when people abandon rationality because of their faith or their ''spiritual guidence''

    I honestly didn't know about the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his Rajneeshpuram community but I'm not surprised of how things started to get out of control, especially with people like Ma Anand Sheela, who undoubtedly got drunk with power and used her resources and the people who supported her to do what he did.

    This original Netflix documentary is divided into 6 episodes of 65 minutes or so and frankly is very is well done, the subject was quite attractive, I liked it, although I think its lenght could be somewhat smaller but in the end it's sufficiently relevant and fascinating to reflect after watching it or to have excellent conversation topic afterwards.    … Full Review »
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