The Garden: Commune or Cult

Coming off actual documentaries on harmful cults like Love Has Won, , this one was framed from the start as something shocking, teasing at violence and coercive control.

Instead we get a semi-scripted reality show where it appears that actors responding to the casting call were structured around whatever roles as "the Viking", "the outcast who hates hippie nonsense", "the out of water influencer", "the citizen detective investigator" etc etc, offered talking head moments and given childhood camp-like "survival training".

The production company doesn't appear make documentaries but reality shows about sexy Amish people or whatever Discovery exploitation du jour, replacing actual HBO documentary content with this will be the future of your subscription budget.

Back to the series!

There's a plot of land, a general misunderstanding of collective decisions, a disdain for people who live as they want to, and a wacky cast with roles that primarily involve disgust for the way some people choose to live.

The legacy of this show for me is how lazy it is in reinforcing xenophobia and small-mindedness through the usual reality TV lens. Was it a mistake for the commune to make any deal with Discovery? I hope it paid for some infrastructure so they can live freer.

But jeezy, I don't know how it'll be seen by people (it'll just be seen since it cost very little for Discovery) but I did look up the general response on Reddit and I had a hard time finding anyone who thought it didn't do the commune a disservice with this sloppy, boring fiction, people mugging for the camera and causing distress to their hosts who for any flaws of prepper skill didn't ask to be harassed and intimidated.

I don't usually leave reviews! I think this is really what the old HBO sub budget will become, slickly filmed (I'll give field sound / video workers props, BEGRUDGINGLY) but Discovery will sell us these trash true crime "series" with pretense of content and end up with cheap "freak show" exploitation and ironically perpetuating small minded paranoia a lot more than the actual outcasts that.

Is there more to come? This documentary ended without an ending. I feel frustrated about the whole thing. I wasted hours watching this just to have it end, abruptly. In my opinion, I felt that nobody in this documentary was appealing in any way, or was a sympathetic character. Everyone came across as self-indulgent, narcissistic, and egomaniacal, to some degree. I wish HBO would add a warning that this is an incomplete documentary, so people don't waste their time if they are expecting a wrap-up at the end. I really thought there would be more episodes. Why didn't the question asked in the title ever get answered? 👎

I thought that I was watching a docuseries, what I got was a bunch of petty drama typical of a reality show. It's like The Real World, only off the grid. These people are insufferably disagreeable and sanctimonious. They're basically the kids that hated taking baths as children, only a few decades later. Now they live in the woods and mock the rest of us as "conformists. " I get the impression that the whole cult question is nothing more than marketing to hook people into check out this series. That Carrot Top looking mofo with "Tree Forrester" (so much cringe) as a sobriquet is also the last person that I would nominate as a spokesperson for any organization.

I took the bait... I thought this was a documentary about a cult. But as soon as those credits rolled with a fake fight happening in the background like all those discovery channel garbage reality show I was quickly reminded that discovery is part of hbo max now. It is terrible of HBO to clearly come after the people who like cult documentaries and use false advertising like this. This merger is going to be the death of hbo, they are catering to the extremes on both sides and are forgetting about us normies. Well that was a long rant about hbo, tk get back to the show...well it sucks, it is so obviously fake, they bring in actors who have no skill set to be outdoors. It's just bunch of paid actors who have fake fights like every cheaply produced discovery channel trash.

Bleeping out the curse words made it unwatchable. These are people who swear ALOT. They could have put a warning at the beginning and let it go.

I love a good documentary. I love living off the grid as much as possible. I hoped maybe I could get some good project ideas for my land. From the previews I could tell these were the kind of people I have known all my life, good and bad. I got 1/2 way through the first episode and gave up. Maybe it's a cult? Maybe it's just a groovy bunch of people. I'll never know because y'all think we can't handle a few curse words.

If you're too fragile to hear the naughty words this is the documentary for you.