Tiger back with a mangy old tale
ANOTHER week, another
celebrity travelogue. Surely soon there will be nowhere left untouched by an actor between jobs and a camera crew?
Griff’s Great New Zealand Adventure on ITV on Friday was full of promise though, with Griff Rhys Jones taking the Kiwi roads less travelled.
But it was no gentle stroll – more zipping around in planes, canoes and Jeeps.
Griff started by going forehead-toforehead with a Maori chief, who gave the country’s greeting, ‘Kia Ora’, which until that moment I hadn’t realised wasn’t just a squash I used to drink in the 90s. Then Griff slid down some sand dunes and visited a giant outdoor art gallery.
A blessed relief from the deluge of lockdown travels around Britain.
AFTER just one episode of Tiger King 2, launched on Netflix this week, it was apparent that the producers were flogging a dead tiger. Or in the case of Joe Exotic, several dead tigers…
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness was the smash hit of lockdown, making 58-year-old Joe – and his mullet – breakout stars.
His dodgy Oklahoma zoo was bonkers, with animal trafficking, dangerous feuds, baby tigers being stroked, staff being mauled, murder charges, bad hair and cheesy country songs.
Joe ended up on T-shirts, mugs and memes across the globe. There’s even a Joe-inspired perfume out for Christmas – you’re welcome.
Hilariously, in season two you can only see the grainy top half of Joe’s head, featuring a questionable fringe, as he rants on the phone from prison. “I’m fed up with the whole mess. Why am I in here?” he moans. He’s furious that everyone is making money from the Tiger King brand, while he is caged (karma much?) and serving a 22-year sentence for 17 counts of animal abuse and an attempted murderfor-hire plot to kill his nemesis, big cat conservationist Carole Baskin.
Season 2 is excruciatingly spun out to five episodes, by the end of which my brain was mush.
Ludicrous
The series is guilty of wheeling out anyone who has ever had any vague link to the madness, even if they have nothing to say. The highlight was a serious-looking cop, who repeatedly confirmed absolutely nothing. Everyone else made wild accusations based on gossip.
After a cuttings-job catch up, two episodes focused on a dull “deep dive” into the freezing cold case of Don Lewis, the missing-presumed-dead ex-husband of
Baskin, putting her uncomfortably on trial. An armchair detective and a psychic clairvoyant unsurprisingly found no new leads, but I did laugh when the medium threw up in a bush.
With the arrival of the abhorrent Wildlife in Need boss Tim Stark, another gobby roadside zoo megalomaniac, the series did regain its sparkle.
It’s these ludicrous characters that make it work – and with Joe absent, we needed a new villain.
Jeff Lowe, perched on his zebra-print throne like the don of the zoo world mafia, is also the stuff memes are made of.
This season held its cards close to its chest until the end, revealing its trump card with news of another murder plot.
I’d hate to spoil it for the few who make it to episode five, but let’s just say it involves trees, string and Joe’s head.
A final cliffhanger worryingly suggests a third season, but I fear most viewers will be well and truly over this wild saga.