Forget Yellowjackets, This Forgotten Prime Video Show Did Survival Thriller Better

The survival thriller Yellowjackets has finally released its third season. The creators have made a surprisingly exciting attempt to present a female version of Lord of the Flies.

If you are not interested in the storyline with the secrets of the adult heroines, then you can give a chance to a very similar in concept, but less known series that was released a year earlier – The Wilds.

What Is The Wilds About?

After a private jet crashes, nine surviving passengers find themselves alone on a desert island in the ocean. The pilot and crew are dead, there is no communication, and now nine teenage girls must somehow survive on their own and get off the inhospitable island.

The Wilds is not just a series about girls on a desert island, but a story about how the past affects the present, and how external difficulties can become a catalyst for internal change.

The Wilds Is a Survival Story With an Intriguing Twist

Like Yellowjackets, The Wilds seems to have a similar, if less ambitious, mission than Lord of the Flies: to see what happens when you put a group of girls with very different backgrounds, temperaments and attitudes to life together on an island.

But it quickly becomes clear that The Wilds is not a traditional Robinson Crusoe story. The girls have not just landed on this strange island, they are being watched by mysterious scientists as part of an apparently illegal experiment.

Their every step, their every decision is being broadcast by hidden cameras, and no one is going to save them.

This distinguishes The Wilds from Yellowjackets – watching the latter, the viewer knows that the disaster was an accident and the girls are being searched for, while the social experiment twist in The Wilds significantly raises the stakes and heats up the situation.

The Wilds Is Also a Compelling Drama about Teenage Struggles

But the main thing in The Wilds is not even the thriller component, but the dramatic one. At first, each girl seems more like a walking TV stereotype: an excellent student, an athlete, a beauty, a quiet girl. In fact, each of them has a well-thought-out story that is more compelling than any conspiracy plot.

The main character, Leah, is having a hard time breaking up with her boyfriend. At first, it seems like a typical teenage melodrama – and that's exactly how the girl's parents deal with her experience.

But gradually, viewers learn a truly complex and heartbreaking story about a very unusual relationship between a young girl and an adult man.

The Wilds Doesn't Go Supernatural, It's a Pure Survival Thriller with Strong Dramatic Plot

Reddit users noticed the similarity between the two projects and even conducted a poll to find out which show was better – The Wilds won by a small margin.

Perhaps the reason is that The Wilds gives viewers exactly what it promises – it is a survival thriller that focuses on the personal struggles of the main characters.

At the same time, Yellowjackets quickly moves into the realm of the almost supernatural with multiple mysteries, and gradually begins to devote more time to the stories of the adult characters, leaving survival in the Canadian woods in the background.