Take a Walk on “The Wilds” Side: Chronicling the Creation and Cancellation of Amazon Studio’s First YA Series
September 28, 2024
A group of strangers on a plane plummet towards the earth in an apparent aviation accident. These eight strangers, all girls being sent to a young women’s empowerment retreat in Hawaii, instead find themselves stranded on a deserted island. With no one and nothing in sight, they quickly realize this island will be the sight of their battle for survival. This is the opening scene in Amazon Prime’s YA television drama The Wilds (2020-2022). Across two seasons, these eight girls work together (and occasionally against each other), as they fight to stay alive, search for a way off the island, and begin to unravel the conspiracy which led each of them to be there in the first place. Yet after a promising first two seasons, the show was canceled, eternally stranding the eight girls on the deserted island.
This paper will look at the economic and cultural motivations behind the creation and eventual cancellation of Amazon Prime’s The Wilds. Ultimately, Prime Video wanted The Wilds because it would allow them to compete in the realm of quality YA television, and canceled the show when it was no longer perceived as competitive with other YA shows.
Since the days of Beverly Hills 90210 (1990-2000), YA and teen dramas have long been major hits on broadcast networks. Shows like Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003) or The O.C. (2003-2007) on The CW Network hooked audiences for multiple seasons, garnering dedicated fanbases. More recently, streaming platforms have begun to produce their own content in the YA arena, hoping to produce long-running hits with devoted audiences. This new generation of YA shows have expanded past the mostly high school-centered soaps of the late nineties and early 2000s, introducing elements of other genres like prestige dramas, fantasy or science fiction. Notably, rival streaming platforms Netflix and Hulu have already staked their claim in this lucrative market, achieving significant success in the realm of young adult television with hits like Never Have I Ever (2020-2023) and Normal People (2020).
Prime Video, Amazon’s SVOD platform has made recent inroads into this market. In 2019, Variety reported that Amazon Studios was making a move into the world of YA television with three new forthcoming projects, including The Wilds. The series, created by writer and executive producer Sarah Streicher (best known for Marvel and Netflix’s “Daredevil”) was a co-production between Amazon Studios and ABC Signature Studios, where Streicher had an overall deal. Amy B. Harris, of Sex and the City fame, was brought on as showrunner and executive producer. Jamie Tarses, Dylan Clark and Brian Williams and Susanna Fogel, all successful producers who had yet to delve into the realm of YA television, also served as executive producers. Not only did The Wilds represent Prime Video’s first foray into the fruitful market of young adult television, it was also a unique series in a number of ways.
While part of each episode covers a flashback to one of the protagonists’ time in high school, most of the show takes place on a deserted island, making it much more reminiscent of Lost (2004-2010) than your average YA series. However, the show remains true to conventions of the teen drama with the high stakes survival on the island serving as a parable for coming of age as a teenage girl. As protagonist Leah puts it (in the hyperbolic manner befitting a teenager and a teen series), "If we're talking about what happened out there, then yeah, there was trauma. But being a teenage girl in normal-ass America, that was the real living hell” (qtd. in Donahue).
Not only does The Wilds make inroads into the YA series space, it also is unique in that it features an all female cast. Jennifer Salke, at the time the new Head of Amazon Studios, stated that the three new series she had picked up existed, “in that space by young female writers that feel very addictive and sophisticated…” (Goldberg). Her foresight initially proved true, as the first season of The Wilds was met very favorably.
Amazon Prime took a creative leap with The Wilds, dropping a series in a new and competitive genre for them, and promoting women behind and in front of the camera. Furthermore, they successfully found their target audience, despite the challenge of promoting the show without spoiling the central mystery. Dropping in December 2020, the show quickly garnered a fanbase who were hooked, anxious to unravel the show’s many twists and turns. Not only was The Wilds well received by fans, but also by critics. IndieWire said the series had, “...the most compelling teenage girl characters seen in a genre TV program since “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (Donahue). The first season finale had audiences and critics alike hungry for more. Luckily, the series was renewed for a second season in under ten days of initial release.
Season two of the series dropped in May of 2022. The finale also wrapped up with more questions than answers. However, fans were shocked when Prime Video announced that they would not be renewing for a third season. The second part of this paper will explore the forces leading to the cancellation of The Wilds.
The second season of the series continues its exploration of the eight girls on the island, but with one crucial twist; eight new characters. These eight characters, all boys, all serve as a “control” for the girls group. However, the show’s sophomore iteration was received with much more mixed reviews from both audiences and critics. Deadline compares audience reaction to the two seasons; “The Wilds generated a lot of buzz when it launched December 11, 2020, earning a swift renewal. Reaction to the teen drama has been more subdued since its return this past May” (Andreeva). Critic reviews were also ambivalent. Entertainment Weekly writes that, “Dropping eight new characters into an already sprawling ensemble is a bold move…” (Baldwin). The Wrap describes season two as “intense but enjoyable,” however, it, “feels crowded at times with 8 new characters” (Horne). Though not as lauded as the first season, season two still attracted audiences who were eager for a third season. However, while The Wilds meandered in its second season, another series, Yellowjackets (2021-), only gained traction.
It would be impossible to explore the cancellation of The Wilds without addressing the elephant in the tv room: Showtime’s Yellowjackets. Released in 2021, a year after The Wilds, Yellowjackets follows a girls soccer team across multiple timelines after their plane crashes in the woods. Before it was even released, the series immediately invited comparisons to The Wilds. Though differing in genre (Yellowjackets is not technically YA, though it features teen characters), plot and tone, the two series were quickly pitted against one another in the pop cultural imagination. Yellowjackets was not only well received by critics and audiences for its first season, but was in fact even more celebrated for its second season. According to Deadline, the finale for Season 2 broke Showtime’s streaming record, reaching 1.5 million viewers (Campione).
Was the success of Yellowjackets the reason the producers of The Wilds decided to cancel the show? No, or at least not directly. However, it does demonstrate how competitive the television market is for shows centering teens, especially girls and women. Furthermore, when it first dropped in 2020, The Wilds had been the first and only YA show produced by Amazon Studios. However, by 2022, Prime Video now had other competitive YA projects in the works, most notably The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022-). This YA series was much more typical for the genre, featuring love triangles and pop songs. Though tackling some of the same universal struggles of coming-of-age, it was tonally much lighter and sweeter than The Wilds. Now, over two years later, The Summer I Turned Pretty has already been renewed for its third season. While The Wilds had garnered a dedicated fanbase, it lacked the mass appeal that The Summer I Turned Pretty could achieve. In other words, when compared with The Wilds, The Summer I Turned Pretty was a much safer bet for Prime Video.
Therefore, not only had the quality of content changed between seasons one and two of The Wilds, but so had the quality of the television market. These two factors together made The Wilds much less competitive as a show. In July of 2022, Deadline broke the news that Prime Video would not be renewing the series for its third season.
Though short lived as a series, The Wilds’ moment in the spotlight points to shifts in the world of television. As the show to break the ice for Amazon Studios in the YA realm, The Wilds demonstrates the primacy of young audiences in today’s market. Furthermore, the show highlights the importance of women’s stories, women storytellers and women audiences. In fact, the fact that The Wilds overlapped with Yellowjackets may not have necessarily pointed to its downfall, but in fact highlighted exciting new opportunities in the genre. When asked about her thoughts on Yellowjackets in an interview with TVLine, Amy B. Harris said, “I’m never quite sure why there is a moment where certain things get tapped at the same time, but the joy for me is… there’s room for all of it” (Gelman 2). Harris also says, “All I can say is I’m incredibly grateful [Yellowjackets is on Showtime] because it says women’s stories and young women’s stories are touching people, and people want to be in on it” (Gelman 2). Perhaps in the future studios will give more space for two female-led survival shows. For now at least, like the protagonists of the show, The Wilds is stranded on that deserted island of canceled shows. However, the two seasons of The Wilds point to exciting new developments in the world of YA television.
Works Cited
Andreeva, Nellie. “‘The Wilds’ Canceled By Prime Video After 2 Seasons.” Deadline, 28 Jul. 2022. https://deadline.com/2022/07/the-wilds-canceled-prime-video-no-season-3-amazon-1235080829/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
Campione, Katie. “‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Finale Snags Streaming Record For Showtime With 1.5M Total Viewers.” Deadline, 31 May, 2023. https://deadline.com/2023/05/yellowjackets-season-2-finale-streaming-record-showtime-ratings-1235383984/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
Donahue, Ann. “‘The Wilds’ Review: Stranded on an Island? Whatever. Just Try Being a Teenage Girl — Spoiler-Free.” IndieWire, 4 Dec. 2020. https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/the-wilds-review-amazon-ya-series-1234601851/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
Gelman, Vlada. “The Wilds Bosses Talk Adding Boys to the Teenage Girls Survivalist Drama and Coexisting With Yellowjackets.” TVLine, 4 May 2022. https://tvline.com/previews/the-wilds-season-2-spoilers-boys-island-yellowjackets-comparisons-1234825850/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
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Gomez, Dessi. “‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Season 3: Everything We Know So Far.” Deadline, 20 May 2024. https://deadline.com/2024/05/the-summer-i-turned-pretty-season-3-release-date-plot-1235925050/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
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Horne, Karama. “‘The Wilds’ Season 2 Review: Prime Video Series Returns Darker and More Diabolical Than Ever.” The Wrap, 2 May, 2022. https://www.thewrap.com/the-wilds-season-2-review-amazon-prime-video/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
Otterson, Joe. “Amazon Orders YA Drama ‘The Wilds’ From Sarah Streicher to Series.” Variety, 28 May 2019. https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/amazon-the-wilds-series-1203226989/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
Porter, Rick. “Amazon YA Drama ‘The Wilds’ Ordered to Series.” The Hollywood Reporter, 28 May 2019. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/amazon-ya-drama-wilds-ordered-series-1214020/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
Shafer, Ellise. “‘The Wilds’ Canceled at Amazon Prime Video After Two Seasons.” Variety, 28 Jul. 2022. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/the-wilds-canceled-amazon-prime-video-1235328950/. Accessed 26 September 2024.
