Untamed

The kind of show you might turn on as a distraction instead of a show that requires close watching. But it’s an entertaining distraction, with just enough story to keep things moving.

It’s a show that begins with topical potential that goes unrealized and, instead, settles for spinning a solid yarn, albeit one propped up by entirely too many clichés.

As serviceable as it is, it leaves the impression of having once had the bones of a more elegant thriller, softened to become a more standard, more palatable prospect. It’s twisty, but it doesn’t take much to guess what those twists are, and where they will lead.

There’s plenty of substance to keep curiosity afloat enough as the next episode begins to roll. Unfortunately, said substance can’t help but lose its own connective tissue as an intriguing murder mystery devolves before long into something not at all unlike what came before, ultimately transforming into just another show about people trying to get to the bottom of something unusual.

The premise promises more than what ultimately gets delivered in this disjointed, semi-compelling six-part series.

Untamed is a digestible enough crime series with a couple of solid performances. But it’s not satisfying because it frustratingly stretches itself thin.

As vexing as its distension, however, is its mildness—a quality that plagues its stock characters, its ho-hum mystery, and its climactic revelations, which are visible from a mountain peak away.

Inessential yet world-building exchanges set “Untamed” apart from most streaming-service procedurals. So does the Smiths’ ability to maintain mysteries through several episodes and deliver genuine thrills and surprises. This quality wanes, however, as the rangers uncover criminal enterprises that pose greater threats to the national park than even DOGE did.

It leans harder and harder on murder-mystery tropes that have all but exhausted their utility. By the end, “Untamed” can only offer more of the same, despite ample opportunity to provide something “different.”

As it stands, the Netflix series is tonally ineffective, visually uncompelling, and narratively drags viewers to the middle of nowhere.

Its central plot is so formulaic, and the series so tentative in making any larger argument about how we alternately romanticize and abuse nature, that Untamed never bushwhacks its way into its own identity. The series’ first scene is a banger, and it’s all downhill from there.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this premise; it’s just fleshed out in the most hackneyed way possible. Turner is the kind of antihero detective we’ve seen a million times before. .... Untamed has a far more fascinating and multifaceted lead in Yosemite.