SERIES REVIEW – Mark L. Smith (American Primeval) and Elle Smith’s collaborative effort, Untamed, is a six-part drama that throws viewers straight into the depths of a murder mystery set in one of America’s most iconic national parks. In the show’s opening moments, Eric Bana’s Kyle Turner rides up to a major crime scene on horseback, his jaw clenched and stubble fierce against the backdrop of British Columbia’s landscapes passing for Yosemite National Park. One of the park rangers, with a mix of snark and admiration, calls Turner “Gary Fucking Cooper,” making it instantly obvious that Smith and Smith are shooting for classic Western vibes—with a modern edge.

Though almost all of Untamed was shot in Canada and its leading man is Australian (and his mentor is a Kiwi), the show desperately wants to channel the old-school American Western, hunting for the same crowd that’s hooked on Yellowstone and its countless spin-offs. Even though Netflix brands it a limited series, Untamed doesn’t close any real doors. This tightly wound—sometimes suffocating—six-episode thriller is tailored for fans of Slow Horses, Reacher, or Department Q, plus those who enjoy the structure of True Detective but could do with less existential philosophizing.

Untamed wastes no time grabbing attention. The series opens as two nameless climbers ascend El Capitan, when a woman’s body comes tumbling down from the summit, nearly dragging them all to their deaths—a sequence that’ll churn the stomach of anyone queasy with heights, even if the visuals are clearly heavy on CGI and compositing.

The case falls into Turner’s hands. He’s a Special Agent for the Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service, a fixture in the park for decades after a short-lived FBI career. He isn’t sure, but he suspects he knows the victim—a woman with a gold “X” tattoo and wounds that look suspiciously like an animal attack. Not all the small details in the opening will make sense by the end, but odds are you’ll have forgotten them—and the writers don’t seem to mind if you do.

Turner is built like every “Prestige TV” genius detective—razor-sharp instincts, a haunted personal life, and zero tolerance for mediocrity. His savant edge and trauma quickly put him at odds with Naya (Lily Santiago), a single-mom park ranger just relocated from LA, who’s none too pleased to be assigned as Turner’s sidekick.

Thanks to his baggage and a drinking habit (whose severity the show never really nails down), Turner is a constant worry for his surrogate dad and head ranger Paul Souter (Sam Neill), as well as for his ex-wife Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt), who’s now married to Scott (Josh Randall)—a guy so average you’ll forget he exists the minute he’s off-screen.

Old Skeletons and Overworked Plots

Conveniently, the dead woman’s case ties into a missing person from Turner’s past—not to be confused with a totally separate disappearance also bubbling up in his backstory. It all wraps up a little too neatly, underscoring the show’s biggest flaw: Untamed simply doesn’t have enough characters to build real twists or true misdirection.

At first, the series flirts with depth. When Turner arrives at that first crime scene, there’s some banter about jurisdiction that made me hope for a peek into the chain of command—park rangers, local law, superintendents, the ISB—plus all the headaches of solving a murder inside a national park.

Early on, there are hints Untamed might actually tackle issues like the National Park Service’s shrinking workforce—after all, the current administration axed a quarter of their staff. Would this be the first show to shine a light on the fallout from DOGE layoffs? Would Untamed celebrate the necessity of protecting the parks, or would it dismiss those efforts as government waste? The answer, in all cases: nope. The show dodges all of it.

I’m a sucker for a good whodunit in an offbeat setting, and Untamed occasionally makes the most of its “Yosemite” setting—swapping the standard dive bar for a tourist lodge, or running with the idea that a vast, little-explored park could easily hide squatters and swallow up the lost. But mostly, the jurisdictional stuff fizzles, the geography feels cramped, and it gets repetitive how often we’re stuck in the same postcard-ready views. Instead of letting the setting breathe, Untamed uses its wilderness mostly as window dressing—less effective than, say, Joe Pickett (which also films in Canada while pretending to be Wyoming).

Missed Chances and Familiar Tropes

Untamed starts with promise but settles for spinning a brisk, cliché-heavy yarn. Turner’s tragic past—played as a reveal, so I’ll play coy too—Wilson Bethel’s ex-sniper turned animal control officer, and the umpteenth “using a dead person’s face to unlock their phone” gag all land as shortcuts, not substance.

Still, the show zips along—shortcuts have a way of doing that—and Bana and Santiago have the kind of odd-couple chemistry these shows live and die on. Bana plays it tough and stoic without lapsing into melodrama, keeping Untamed a mystery rather than a character study. Santiago’s fresh, sarcastic take adds humor you wouldn’t expect, especially given Mark L. Smith’s darker filmography (see The Revenant and American Primeval).

Neill and DeWitt’s characters are mostly sidelined, though they bring some warmth when they do appear—even if the script sometimes forces them awkwardly into scenes (like Jill babysitting Naya’s kid for no real reason). Supporting players like Raoul Max Trujillo, JD Pardo, and Alexandra Castillo hint at an ensemble that could’ve been, if only the show had bothered.

By the finale—mainly thanks to Bana and Santiago, plus the novelty of the national park setting—I was engaged enough to wish the series had one or two more episodes. Maybe Netflix should rethink that “limited series” label.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-