Your Next Must-Watch? The Reviews Of Untamed Are In
The six-part drama landed on the streaming platform on 17 July and promises to add some toe curling tension to your summer. But is it worth watching? The reviews are in...
For fans of The Perfect Couple or a good murder mystery novel, Untamed may be the ideal show to sink your teeth into this summer, but what do the critics say?
Rebecca Nicholson at The Guardian awarded the series three stars. 'It's not the smartest, but the mountains are lovely,' she wrote, adding that Untamed 'makes a fairytale of both detective work and the great outdoors'.
Meanwhile Variety 's Aramide Tinbubu had more generous things to say about the show. 'Deeply layered and gripping, Untamed is a brilliant detective tale anchored by some of our worst human impulses,' she writes. 'It is a story of pain, shame and the hope of redemption, even when there appears to be no way out. A series about justice, control and who gets to be remembered, it's also a reminder that in the end, our true nature will always be revealed.'
The Hollywood Reporter critic Daniel Fienberg calls the show 'intriguing but rushed'. As he puts it, '[ Untamed ] the sort of tightly – often too tightly – constructed six-episode potboiler with epic frontier undertones that should find a receptive audience among fans of mysteries like Slow Horses, Reacher and Dept Q (as well as viewers who like the general structure of True Detective, but would prefer a little less philosophical noodling).
'Rarely have the parks – their vastness, their complexity, the official and unofficial denizens who live and work within them – been as central to a story as Yosemite is to Untamed, ' notes Time TV critic, Judy Berman. For her, the scenery is the star of the show. 'Forget Turner, Vazquez, Jill, Paul—all egregiously underwritten. Untamed has a far more fascinating and multifaceted lead in Yosemite.'
A disappointing two stars are given from Dan Einav at the Financial Times. 'Little of what we see during out visit to Yosemite is inspiring or natural – from the contrived writing to the signature Netflix aesthetic that makes everything look more overproduced than untamed.'
However, it's a strong four stars from Carol Midgley at The Times. 'Having watched all six episodes, I would never have guessed the outcome or the guilty party. Ultimately, it is a series which transcends, with ease, its central cliché.'
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across entertainment, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things pop culture for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow with equal respect).
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