Amazon Prime cancels The Wilds
The series, about young women stranded after a plane crash, ran for two seasons on the streamer
Aux News The Wilds
Amazon Prime announced today that it’s just cancelled that other TV show about a bunch of high school-aged kids surviving a plane crash and being forced to survive in the wilderness, revealing that it’s putting an end to The Wilds after two seasons on the air.
The YA-focused series, created by Sarah Streicher, starred Sophia Ali, Shannon Berry, Jenna Clause, Reign Edwards, Mia Healey, Helena Howard, Erana James, and Sarah Pidgeon as the survivors of its central crash, eking out life on a wilderness island after their plane goes down. (And, once again, we’d like to remind you that this show debuted nearly a full year before Showtime’s Yellowjackets.) Rachel Griffiths also stars, as a mysterious woman who runs the empowerment retreat the survivors were headed to when their plane crashed. (Does she have a strange connection to their lives, and the crash, and a big ol’ conspiracy? Yes: That’s revealed in the first episode, so it doesn’t feel like much of a spoiler, really.)
As we noted above, The Wilds ran for two seasons on Amazon Prime, with the second season (which aired in May of this year) expanding the focus to another group of teens stranded on an island, this one made up of young men. As noted by Deadline, the series was the first YA-focused show to run on Amazon Prime, which has made a series of strides to attempt to capture that market in recent years. (See also the short-lived I Know What You Did Last Summer show, which was canceled back in January.) The Wilds picked up a swift renewal and some strong attention when it debuted back in December 2020, but by the time that second season came along a year and a half later, much of the online enthusiasm seemed to have fled.
18 Comments
I love it when I find out a show exists when I read that it’s been cancelled.
Especially when I also learn that it’s good and that it ends on a cliffhanger, meaning that I will never watch it.
It’s worth watching regardless.
Not until you can explain to me who John from Cincinnati is.
I meant The Wilds. I feel like if you are going to make a “mystery box” show, you need to have an actual answer or some basic idea of the full universe before you’re allowed to make it. Looking at you, Lost.
This is how I learn of most shows’ existence these days, either on streaming services or regular TV.
I enjoyed this show for the most part, but they were really hell-bent on not revealing what the hell was going on and that made it hard to get too invested before the inevitable cancellation. It was really obvious that there would be more questions than answers whenever it ended, even if it got 5 more seasons.
You know it was just going to be the Dean Koontz thing where they were all part of the same clandestine government experiment as children or some horseshit
Yeah. I couldn’t even tell what she was trying to prove with the experiment, and in season 2 they never got into one of the girls being a mole for the experimenters, which was kind of a big deal in season 1.
Man, that sucks. This was a pretty cool show. I have just started Yellowjackets, which is definitely the MA version of The Wilds. I loved season 1 and there were elements that didn’t sit as well in season 2, but the heights of season 2 were great. Leah’s spirit guide was so much better than I would have ever expected, the cast really fleshed out their roles, and I was emotionally invested in ways I usually don’t get. A little less mystery box, for the love of Jebus! If you’re gonna create a mystery box show, spend a week figuring out what is in the box. You don’t have to tell us season 1, but don’t just keep hinting that you might hint at having a plan.
Damn it. I hate it when Amazon does this. I love teenage girl exploitation shows.
But I also hate it when Amazon produces a GREAT show, and then cancels it on a cliffhanger. Sense8, anyone? (Yes, I know they managed to shoot a wrap-up movie, but only after massive fan outrage)
“Adding a bunch of boys to our all-girl survival drama sure seemed like a good idea…”
“with the second season (which aired in May of this year) expanding the focus to another group of teens stranded on an island”So, it’s basically LOST?
And Lost is basically Robinson Crusoe x Lord of the Flies x The Prisoner???? We can play this game all day long.
SPOILER:…This is a bunch of children who apparently are sent to get toughened up by their parents with a twist that the ones running the program have some other research project they are doing.
‘So Cousin Sal, doesn’t it look like The Wilds was market-corrected by Yellowjackets? Wednesday beats Brenda! Northern wilderness is having a moment, islands are over!!’
The first season was uneven, but generally enjoyable and showed some promise.
The second season was boring and we stopped midway through.
Too bad. Neat idea, a few good casting choices, but they didn’t quite know how to drive the narrative forward.
I ran across this series in 2023 via a live-chat influencer pushing YellowJackets; both targeting Millennials/Gen X to live vicariously through these “teens” in twisted Big Brother/Gilligan’s Island/NVXIM dark fantasy survivor dramas, while smugly pushing a Gen Z version of an idiots guide to “don’t talk to strangers” for stereo-typically disenchanted teens.
The casting is atrocious – many of the actors’ looks and mannerisms belie they’re 2, 3 times the supposed teen’s ages (especially the entitled South Asian girl; her IMDBio reveals she’s done adult roles ~2 decades, which means she’s at least pushing 40). Beyond the poor sunburned makeup jobs, none of them seem physically changed after spending weeks scrounging for food, water and shelter, especially the chubby ones. Their behavior conveniently vacillates between very perceptive to downright dense just to serve keeping its shaky premise afloat. None of them initally pushed for hard, detailed proof of credentials of their captors while readily accepting denied contact with their guardians at face value, whatever their feelings on the reasons they were there at all. Or why the well-to-do guardians, project benefactors and real authorities haven’t collectively raised the alarm on how all these kids sent to the same “summer recluse” have been missing for weeks, despite the powerful connections of the delusional psychopathic witch running the “study”.