There have been a few solid attempts at survival dramas specifically around plane crashes, including 2018’s Manifest and 2019’s Departure. However, there are few that match up to the longevity and appeal of Jeffery Lieber, J.J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof’s Lost. Sarah Streicher’s 2020 drama The Wilds, however, meets the same criteria and more.
The series follows eight teenage girls of diverse backgrounds who find themselves stranded on an island after their plane malfunctions and must put their differences aside to survive. The crash occurs while the group is on their way to a wellness retreat, which they are unaware is staged and in reality a part of a social experiment. The biggest appeal of the series is the unpacking of modern problems and fears in today’s youth. Streicher’s show tackles homophobia, religion, eating disorders, mental illness, and parental relationships. The inclusion of these problems makes the show highly believable and relatable to its audience.
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The Wilds Covers Modern Fears and Threats
While Lost dabbled in addiction and betrayal, The Wilds confronts collective problems, not just for youth but for humanity. Each episode visits the main cause of each girl being sent to the retreat and gradually every character must face their particular issue on the island. Season one opens with Leah Rilke and her concerning relationship with an author much older than her. Although their relationship has ended, Leah continues to fixate on this man instead of on survival. Many of the characters behave similarly to Leah, putting their problems first.
For example, Rachel Reid, a competitive swimmer, hangs onto her obsession with exercise and disordered eating rather than conserving energy. Throughout the first season, the girls untangle their problems as a collective and eventually develop a safe space for one another. This is exactly what the leader of the social experiment, Gretchen Klein, wants, to prove that the patriarchy is at fault for issues like Leah’s and Rachel’s. Gretchen’s point is explored further in the second season, which features a group of stranded boys who quickly reject each other and divide over toxic behavior.
The Wilds Features Female Leads
Unlike Lost, whose adventures are mostly driven by male leads like Jack and Locke, The Wilds approaches survival from the female perspective. Not only is the audience presented with women solving problems, but they are also exposed to a female villain, Gretchen Klein, played by Rachel Griffiths. In a Collider conversation with co-creator Amy Harris, Harris confirms that while The Wilds has elements that are an homage to Lost and Cast Away, it is “inherently different” and unique due to “telling it through the lens of teenage girls.”
More specifically, The Wilds compares how issues are solved in both a masculine and feminine way. The series explores extremes that exist in the real world and acknowledges the challenges of the feminine experience.
The Wilds is Honest About Survival
With many of these kinds of series and movies about survival, audiences are often left asking ‘how?’ How are these characters sustaining on little food or water? How are their injuries not killing them? What about food poisoning? The Wilds answers all of these questions. The girls in the first season are not unrealistic in that they don’t push themselves past their limits as time goes on. They aren’t hiking every day or moving way past their original landing place; instead, they make adjustments based on conditions and react organically as situations arise. And, they’re not immune to bad oysters.
Another aspect that added to the believability of the show was that the cast was posed with various challenges to complete the project. For example, they filmed long hours, both day and night, without cellphone service on a rural beach in New Zealand. In a Byrdie interview with Faith Xue, Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Leah, explains that a free diver had to prep her and two other cast members for the scenes out in open water. According to Pidgeon, they spent “three days practicing mindfulness and meditation, increasing [their] lung capacity, and getting comfortable with the feeling of running out of air.” This kind of intensity carries over into the series and gives the entire production an authenticity which makes it a worthy successor to the other great survival TV series of recent years, Lost.
