# Wild Wild Country (2018)

> A documentary miniseries tracing how a controversial guru's utopian city in the Oregon desert spiraled into a national scandal.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/67103

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 67 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary, crime
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Ma Anand Sheela, Jane Stork, Jon Bowerman, Ma Prem Sunshine, Philip Toelkes, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, George Meredith, Krishna Devi
- TMDB rating: 8.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7768848/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: tense, bewildering, unsparing, morally complex

## What critics say

Viewers broadly found the documentary a gripping, richly sourced account of the Rajneeshpuram episode, with its archival access and tense investigative arc drawing strong audience response.

## Synopsis

Wild Wild Country (2018) is a American documentary true crime miniseries created for Netflix, told across six episodes of roughly sixty-seven minutes each. Its core figures are the followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose movement builds a utopian city in the Oregon high desert, and the local residents who push back against it. Former insiders such as Ma Anand Sheela and Jane Stork speak directly to the camera, while archival footage shows the leader and the early founders of the community. The engine of the story is a clash of wills: a commune determined to govern itself against a rural county determined to stop it, with each side's tactics escalating from zoning fights and election battles toward wiretapping, poisoning allegations, and a federal investigation. Each episode advances the chronology in close detail, piecing together testimony, court material, and news footage into one continuous account. The tone is tense, bewildering, and morally knotted, with an intimate, unsparing look at ideals curdling into power. Fans of Making a Murderer, The Vow and Waco: The Rules of Engagement will find resonance in its patient, documentary approach to a real American standoff.

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