(TV SERIES) The Wilds Season 1 - Surprisingly Quite Intense & Dark Teenage Survival Series

As I was browsing for series to watch during last weekend, I realized this one that I postponed a bit since I was in the middle of something else. It was released through Prime Video on 11 December, so it's not that late. I was intrigued by the premise as it reminded me a lot of a series which I loved a lot. Well, I'll get more into it now.

Brief Story Line

A group of high school girls went on a retreat to Hawaii for a trip which were supposedly good for their mental health. The teens consisted of the depressed Leah (Sarah Pidgeon), the strong willed Dot (Shannon Berry - Hunters TV series etc), the all American girl Shelby (Mia Healey), the short fused Toni (Erana James) and her best friend, the always positive Martha (Jenna Clause), the twins Nora (Helena Howard - Madeline's Madeline etc) & Rachel (Reign Edwards - The Bold and the Beautiful soap opera etc), the party girl Fatin (Sophia Ali - Truth or Dare etc) and the cheerful Jeannette (Chi Nguyen). 

However, in the middle of their trip, the plane crashed and they landed on an island where they had to survive by themselves. Agent Young (Troy Winbush) and his partner Faber (David Sullivan - Flaked TV series etc) were in charge of the investigation on what happened to these girls. Meanwhile the person behind the retreat trip, Gretchen Klein (Rachel Griffiths - Hacksaw Ridge, Brothers & Sisters TV series etc) has to deal with the aftermath.

And what would happen to these girls? Find them all in this quite intense & dark teenage survival series.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, I was intrigued by the plot which reminded me a lot about that famous TV series Lost, especially with the plane crash and landed on an island thing. However, the characters were completely different as in this series, they were all young women (teenagers), while in Lost it was mostly adults. The challenges these girls faced were also quite specifically related to them, like romance, sexuality, family, anxiety, even suicidal and so on. Oh another complete difference was no supernatural elements in this series.

All the girls stranded on the island have their own problems and like in similar type of series, they were gradually revealed in each episode to keep us intrigued. This was definitely one of the main attraction of the series, in addition to the obvious thing, mystery surrounding the crash. I like how they tease us little by little on what happened on the island by flash forward to the future, making us guessing how everything occured.

Of all the teenagers here, I think my most favorite was Dot Campbel whom I thought had the heaviest challenge which likely was the reason for her being so tough. That's why I love the 3rd episode the most. The twins dynamic were also my favorite as it was very interesting to see two completely different sisters. The rest of the girls problems were typically what they would face in daily life, some heavier than others even though for these young minds, they could be the biggest problems of their lives.

Aside from these girls, there were also some adults in here who played pivotal roles in the story development. Rachel Griffiths was one of them who I was quite familiar with. She gave a great performance in here. Some of the young cast were newcomers but few already had acting experiences albeit briefly. Amazingly they performed their roles convincingly and they seemed to be great professionals, like they had lots of prior experience. It was certainly nice to watch them acting so naturally and made us root for them. However, having a female centric series might also be a downside for audience who prefer to have a vast type of complexities and dynamics that could only be seen if there were males as well. 

This series did not seem to be based on novel, comics or movies. It was created by Sarah Streicher with the pilot episode directed by Susanna Fogel (director of The Spy Who Dumped Me) who also served as one of the executive producers. The first season has 10 episodes with duration between 42 to 61 minutes. I already mentioned that the 3rd episode was my favorite, but I also loved episode 9 and the finale which was awesome and hinted to a possibly different direction in second season. 

Overall I thought this was a good enough series with wonderful characters development and intriguing mystery plus few twists that could still surprised me. It might not have been up to the calibre of Lost but it was enough to keep me interested till the end. Some people & critics also said that it is a combination of Lost and possibly Mean Girls or Survivors reality show. But personally after watching the whole season, I felt this one was more like The Maze Runner. Anyway if you are fans of such attributes/elements in a series, then you could give it a try.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars