(Mini Series) Untamed - Interesting but Quite Heavy, Dark & Tragic Murder Mystery Drama Series

Last Thursday, this interesting new series was released on Netflix but I did not get the chance to watch it as I went to the cinema with my wife for a new movie. So I only began to watch on Friday and finished it last night. Without further ado, let's get on with the series.

Brief Story Line

When the body of unknown young woman was discovered in the Yosemite National Park in California, special agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana - Back to the Outback, Troy etc) was called on to investigate. Park Rangers chief Paul Souter (Sam Neill - Jurassic World: Dominion, Dead Calm etc) assigned rookie Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago - La Brea TV series etc) to partner with Kyle. Behind his cold personality and drinking problem, Kyle was actually a very good investigator and was able to find some clues that would lead to bigger issues.

Meanwhile Kyle's ex wife Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt - Rachel Getting Married, United States of Tara TV series etc) was getting a bit worried with his sometimes erratic condition and asked Paul's help to look after him which further strained their relationship. Things gotten complicated with investigators asking around a missing person case six years ago that was handled by Kyle.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this mini series.

End of Brief Story Line

As soon as I started watching this series, I felt that it would be a rather heavy, dramatic and a bit slow paced. And as I continued watching, the heavy nature felt stronger, though the pace gradually picked up a bit so I would not categorize this under the slow burn series. The first episode showed the sharpness of lead investigator Kyle Turner, though his difficult personality made him not really appreciated by other park rangers. It was quite interesting looking at Naya's persistence in working together with Kyle and proved herself to be quite capable. This dynamic was the only light part of the series.

Through out the whole 6 episodes, we would be shown the investigation and Kyle's personal struggle which I thought was the reason for some critics enjoying his performance, aside from the lovely scenery of Yosemite Park. The mystery itself was quite intriguing and I kind of enjoyed the steady revealing of the case. There were few twists in the series with one shown as early as the first episode, though I could already have guessed it. The next twist was shown in the final episode where to my surprise, I deduced it wrongly on the how but not the why. However, the biggest twist of them all was also the last one in the series. I certainly did not see it coming. Although that part was amazing, the conclusion was not to my liking cause I felt there was double standard on the moral side (I probably was the only one who felt that way).

If you have read my previous posts, you would know that I am a fan of mini series as the story would be concluded in the end and there is no worry of having unresolved issues. And this one was no exception. Having only 6 episodes between 42-51 minutes duration made it easy to finish the whole series. The series itself was created & written by Mark L. Smith (writer of Twisters 2024 sequel, The Midnight Sky etc) together with his daughter Elle Smith. Nothing mentioned about where it was adapted from so it was purely the creativity of the two writers. The cast in general did their job nicely, in particular Eric Bana. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there was another lead cast of Wilson Bethel (Hart of Dixie TV series etc) as wildlife management officer Shane Maguire and support characters of veteran park ranger Milch (William Smillie - Chicago Fire TV series etc), Kyle's colleague Jay Stewart (Raoul Max Trujillo - Blue Beetle etc), Jill's new husband Scott Bodwin (Josh Randall - Station 19 TV series etc), the victim (Ezra Franky) and several others.

Overall this was a pretty enjoyable murder mystery drama mini series for me. The case was interesting with some twists that should please fans of such series. Those who love to see beautiful sceneries likely would be entertained by this as well. Even though the story was rather tragic and heavy, but the dynamics of Naya and Kyle was a joy to watch. There was even a little bit of action in the fifth and the final episode which added entertainment value. Only thing that I was a bit unhappy was that double standard on the moral decision by Kyle cause it resulted to completely different outcome on two separate occasions. The rest was fine for me. So if you are looking for mini series with such attributes, you can certainly give this a try. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars