Hey all you cool cats and kittens! Are you looking to watch a series where you get to learn all about the preservation of big cats? How about a show that documents the upstanding citizens who dedicated their lives to protecting these beautiful creatures? I’d recommend you look elsewhere than Netflix’s latest viral hit “Tiger King.” 

This is not to say the show is bad; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s just that tigers will be the last thing on your mind during much of the show.

“Tiger King” is wonderfully ugly, beautifully crass and amazingly wacky. Spread over seven easily bingeable episodes, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” explores polyamorous gay relationships, meth, sex cults, a run for Governor, murder for hire and a “missing” husband. Oh yeah, and there are also hundreds of tigers and other big cats involved. 

Not a single one of the three big cat owners profiled in “Tiger King” are worthy of any sort of respect, aside from the fact that they haven’t gotten themselves killed yet. 

There’s Kevin “Bhagavan” Antle, also known as Doc, who operates a large sanctuary in South Carolina filled with his many live-in female workers who may or may not all be in a sexual relationship with him. 

Then there’s Carole Baskin, who operates “Big Cat Rescue” in Florida and feels she is one of the few who can properly care for big cats (and may or may not have killed her second husband). 

Finally, there is the main focus of the show, the Tiger King himself, Joe Exotic. The gun-toting, gay cowboy from Oklahoma is truly the greatest showman and does whatever it takes for publicity, taking the phrase “bad publicity is still publicity” way too literally. 

From the very first episode, you are made aware that while all exotic animal owners are strange, big cat people are the type you never want to make friends with and should never be trusted. While I can’t say I ever planned on befriending a big cat person before, I can now say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will never do it.

Every episode leaves you with some new bizarre plot point that seems so out of this world that it has to be fictional. Every bit is true, making “Tiger King” one of the craziest entries into the well-populated true crime genre on Netflix. Its craziness is its strength, however, and the show leans on the ridiculousness of its central characters to captivate you throughout all seven episodes. 

While it’s hard to say whether the show became popular solely due to our current state of social distancing and self-isolation, it is the perfect show for such a strange time. In a way, it mirrors our current societal predicament since we have no idea what will come next in the COVID-19 saga. Strange times deserve an equally strange show to help pass the time. Oh, and one more thing:

Show us the septic tank, Carole.