Stream It Or Skip It?

The title of nature documentary The Wild Ones (now streaming on Apple TV+) boasts a double meaning. Of course, it refers to the animals, all rare and endangered species. It also refers to the conservationists trying to acquire elusive footage of these creatures, who have to be a little wild themselves, braving the elements on a quest to help the animals persevere. Former military commando and world-famous TV explorer Aldo Kane leads the trio of hosts, including wildlife photographer Vianet Djenguet and camera-tech specialist Declan Burley. The six-episode series kicks off with a trek to a sopping-wet Malaysian jungle to film the nearly extinct Malayan tiger.

Opening Shot: Our three guys hump gear through the jungle.

The Gist: Here’s the thing: Declan, Vianet and Aldo don’t just want photographic trophies. They intend to use their footage and any other evidence they find to persuade authorities to expand the boundaries of the Taman Negara rainforest, where the last 150 Malayan tigers live. See, the tigers don’t give a flying fruit about invisible human boundaries, and wander out of the protected park right into the snares of scumbag poachers who sell each tiger for tens of thousands of dollars to create luxury products that have no use beyond being a status symbol for their rich owners. You may puke at will.

Your disgust may get more literal as the three hosts lead a 30-person crew on a two-day trek into the forest, where they worry about foot rot, pull leeches off their skin and wake up every morning to pull on their permanently wet clothes. Declan’s specialty is “camera traps,” which he hides in the bush and are triggered to roll tape when animals walk by. This is the only way they’ll get footage of the tigers, which are very, very wary of humans, as they damn well should be. As Declan and Vianet set up – count ’em – 100 camera traps, and Aldo patrols just outside the Taman Negara forest for evidence of poachers, the show piles on the white-hot SCIENCE, loading us up with facts about the animals and environment, helping us better understand the importance of their mission to maintain the sanctity of this ecosystem.

We’re more than halfway through the episode, and all we’ve seen is some massive ants, a too-close closeup of a millipede, a leech that Aldo gets off his abdomen with a little bit of Scottish whisky from back home and a Malaysian scientist whose arms are absolutely covered with insect bites. Once Declan checks his traps, we finally get some glimpses of cute/scary/awesome wildlife, among them otters, tapirs, a bear, some elephants (!) and small foxlike jungle dogs. Nothing is more camera-shy than the Malayan tiger, so they have to be patient. And when they do finally get some images, they may break your heart – or make it swell with joy.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The gently personality-driven show brings to mind The Crocodile Hunter minus the ripe-for-South Park-satire content, Kane is like Bear Grylls (Man vs. Wild, etc.) without the phony bull roar and the narratives play out like the making-of-Planet Earth episodes where we see camerafolk cram themselves into a blind for weeks in order to catch a couple minutes of footage of that one bird doing that one insane thing.

Our Take: The 45-minute opening episode of The Wild Ones builds up the suspense: When are we going to see the tigers? Where are the tigers? Herrrrrre tiger tiger tiger. Are we there yet? But patience pays off for us and the hosts, of course, because if they didn’t get at least part of what they needed, there would be no episode for us to watch. Thankfully, these men and, more importantly, their work is compelling enough to keep us interested, especially for animal lovers who appreciate the hybrid variation of survivalist reality series and Attenboroughesque look-on-in-awe nature docs. 

We spend a lot of time with Aldo as he pulls poachers’ snares out of the foliage, and with Declan as he treks through dense jungle to check his cameras (and proves to be a big softie when some of the footage moves him to tears). The Wild Ones mostly eschews the canned drama of similar “reality” series for matter-of-fact portrayals of jungle hardship. In one scene, monsoon season starts earlier than expected, followed by Declan explaining how the storm toppled a tree precariously close to their camp – and that’s when Aldo calls it and they go home. Of course, they return months later to check the camera footage and deliver one hell of a payoff for their work and this episode. Stick around. It’s worth the wait. Promise.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: One last look at the towering, mist-shrouded limestone pillars in the Taman Negara.

Sleeper Star: Hey, watch out for that pit viper wrapped around a fern that you can barely see and will bite you and make you feel inordinate amounts of pain!

Most Pilot-y Line: Vianet, after he slowly and carefully pulls his foot out of an untriggered snare: “We are right on the front line of conservation. This is where it gets quite complex. And real.”

Our Call: I loved the first episode of The Wild Ones. It’s fun, informative and full of terrific nature photography. Future eps find the guys tracking down near-extinct whales, gorillas, leopards, rhinos and bears and you should be there to STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.