'Untamed' series review: Nature calls Eric Bana & Lily Santiago in Netflix crime drama

Netflix

A killer or killers on the loose in Yosemite National Park? Shocker. The name doesn't give that away at all. But it is a perfect setting for a miniseries like Untamed, which stars Eric Bana as Kyle Turner, a federal agent for the National Park Service investigating crimes in Yosemite. But since this is a crime drama, he's also a tortured soul and possibly an alcoholic, still feeling the aftershocks of a personal tragedy that severed his marriage with park counsellor Jill Bodwin (Rosemarie DeWitt). Nevertheless, he has to get out of bed and do his job when an unidentified young woman (Ezra Franky) is found dead after a brutal fall. Kyle suspects that she was murdered.

But, again, since this is a crime drama, Kyle gets a new partner when fresh-faced agent Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago) enters the picture. Naya comes from Los Angeles where she was just a regular ol' city cop, and she's getting accustomed to a new situation with her four-year-old son Gael (Omi Fitzpatrick-Gonzales), seemingly distancing them from her ex-boyfriend. Also involved in the investigation are chief park ranger Paul Souter (Sam Neill), reclusive hunter and wildlife officer Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel), and other individuals who pop up along the way.

A dead body, an unsolved murder, new colleagues getting to know each other, family trauma and secrets to be unearthed—with this sort of recipe, it won't take long for you to figure out that you're getting an extremely familiar, old-fashioned and easily digestible program to binge. And for what it's worth, Untamed's showrunners and creators Elle Smith and Mark L. Smith with their writers' room clearly know what kind of story they're telling as the first two episodes ask you just enough questions to hook you and make you want to know the answers to them. You could call this mid television, but that's not a slight when you have a decent cast shepherding you and a few tempo changes up your sleeve. Neither originality nor thematic depth is the main draw here, just FYI, though the writing does every now and then touch on grief, violence, mental health and identifying as a survivor instead of a victim.

When we get to episodes three, four and five, the murder investigation storyline is carrying much of the drama and you do begin to realise there isn't anything else that really grabs you. Multiple storylines feel rushed and underwritten, particularly when it comes to the women in the show compared to the men, whether that is Naya's past relationship coming back to haunt her and Jill's mental health crisis. Also, I don't know about you but I, for one, am rather sick and tired of the escalating trend in TV to desecrate dead characters by turning them into a delusion, which is made worse by the fact that it's the only stylistic flair that the writers and directors (Neasa Hardiman, Thomas Bezucha) have in their arsenal. It's easy to forgive some wonky VFX for wild animals because that's not the main focus here, but you can't forgive allegedly character-building scenes that not only add nothing of value but are downright cringeworthy to sit through.

Untamed doesn't collapse under all this weight by any means as it is for most of its runtime one of those comfortable, formulaic crime tales that we all know and love, and there's enough production value as well as serviceable performances from actors like Bana and Neill. However, the sixth and final episode is the weakest one, which complicates things. Even the cast are seemingly losing faith in the project as they're fed substandard dialogue that is supposed to answer everyone's questions regarding murders and shameful secrets. So, even though the show isn't wholly satisfying, it's not terrible per se, and it does go down easily. But if you're going to make something formulaic, you should do it better than your competition. And while you're at it, make us truly care about the characters and look for some elements that'd make your project unique—even one thing will suffice in this day and age.

Smileys: None

Frowneys: Ending

Naya? Scared to death? Bear-ly.

2.5/5

Where to watch:

This article may contain affiliate links, which means that we may earn a commission if you make a purchase through these links. Thank you for the support!