Warning: the following contains SPOILERS for Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story.
Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story, much like Tiger King 2, also fails to recapture the magic that made the first Tiger King series such a viral Netflix hit. As its title implies, Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story focuses on Bhagavan Antle, the owner and operator of Myrtle Beach Safari. It is the third installment in the infamous Tiger King series, but ultimately proves the most disappointing entry yet.
Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story delves deeper into the background of Mahamayavi Bhagavan Antle. This includes comprehensive details about Antle’s early life, when he lived under the tutelage of Indian spiritualist and Yogaville community founder Swami Satchidananda Saraswati, whom Doc Antle idolized and modeled himself after. The documentary mini-series also expands on the allegations of pedophilia and sexual misconduct against both Doc Antle and Saraswati.
Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story definitely succeeds at revealing exactly how Doc Antle created a cult-like culture and following using the Myrtle Beach Safari, which was Joe Exotic’s model for developing the ill-fated G.W. Zoo. Establishing the connection between Swami Satchidananda Saraswati and Joe Exotic through Doc Antle also shines a light on how private zoos in the U.S. are being run like dangerous cults. However, the most interesting part about Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story continues to be Joe Exotic himself, and how he succeeded at creating a low-rent version of a spirituality-based cult model that can be traced back to the Indian spiritualist who opened the Woodstock Festival in 1969. This isn’t to say that the testimonies of women like former T.I.G.E.R.S. employee Barbara Fisher and Doc Antle’s ex-wives Sumati Steinberg and Radha Hirsch aren’t important in terms of exposing both Doc Antle and Saraswati as pedophilic cult leaders. These women need to be heard, and Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story gives them this much-needed opportunity. That being said, the new Tiger King doesn’t really reveal anything new or shocking about Doc Antle and his well-known questionable practices.
Part of the problem with the spin-off is that most of the shocking reveals in Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story were already tackled in Tiger King and Tiger King 2. While it’s important to take a deep dive into Doc Antle’s contemptuous past, even the revisited revelations about Swami Satchidananda Saraswati’s sexual misconduct quickly outshine and outweigh those that directly involve Doc Antle. Moreover, as Joe Exotic is the resulting train wreck that was wrought by Antle and Saraswati’s established practices, the first Tiger King’s shocking introduction into the cultish world of big cat owners can’t ever be replicated by any subsequent follow-ups to the original docu-series.
Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story is comprised of three episodes. Although the mini-series is not as compelling as Tiger King and Tiger King 2, it does provide essential facts about the mysteries surrounding Doc Antle, including his involvement in a murder case, which seems to be common among big cat owners. But while these stories need to be told, the reality is that the third installment of Tiger King simply fails to recapture the magic of the earlier series’.