Latest news with #MarkL.Smith
Epoch Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Untamed': Murder, Mayhem, and More at Yosemite
TV-MA | 6 episodes | Drama, Action, Crime, Mystery, Thriller | 2025 Co-created and co-written by Mark L. Smith and his daughter Lauren Elle Smith, 'Untamed' is the latest premium cable Western-themed TV series, and proves the once close-to-extinct genre to be far more resilient than many may have thought.
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
American Primeval creator has made Untamed - Netflix's answer to True Detective that could last for years
Our review of Netflix's latest crime thriller The creator of hit American Primeval have just made Netflix's version of True Detective and it could last for years, despite its limited series status. All six episodes of Untamed are now available to watch on the major streamer as of today (July 17). It is easily a must binge watch show for this weekend for any fans of the two previously mentioned shows. According to the brief synopsis shared by Netflix, the crime thriller is based amidst the vast expanse of Yosemite National Park. A woman's suspicious death draws a federal agent into lawless terrain, where nature obeys no rules but its own. Untamed was created and written by father daughter team, Mark L. Smith and Elle Smith. Smith senior previously wrote the screenplays for The Revenant, for which Leonardo DiCaprio finally picked up an Oscar, and Twisters. He also created the historical drama American Primeval, which was a hit for Netflix earlier in the year. Together, the duo look to have repeated and offered up the closest thing to True Detective Netflix has been able to provide among all its binge worthy crime dramas and declared themselves as two of the steamer's must follow creatives. If anything they write next is as addictive as Untamed, I'll be there day one. True Detective is known for its A-list cast list and Untamed certainly competes in that area itself. It is lead by Australian actor Eric Bana, who has starred in Troy, The Time Traveller's Wife and played the Hulk before the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He is supported by Jurassic Park star Sam Neill, Wilson Bethel who also plays Bullseye in the Daredevil television series along with Rosemarie DeWitt and Lily Santiago. Together, along with a central mystery that follows many twists and turns, the series throws up a story even more gripping than any other murder mystery. In fact, I found myself gripped harder than any of True Detective's four seasons, which often fell by the wayside. There's no such danger here, with the Netflix series determined to clear everything up. Untamed, also like the HBO show, makes understated use of the supernatural and local folklore. It would spoil an early plot point to explain in detail how this is but while True Detective might thrust the ghost stories in the viewers' faces, Untamed keeps them rightfully in the shadows to reflect on its characters and spectacular setting. A clear benefit of setting a show in one of the US' celebrated National Parks is that some of the shots used can be as dramatic or intimate as desired. While Mark Smith's previous Netflix success, American Primeval, took advantage of its setting in its time period, Untamed does similar with its locality. Untamed only ever slows down to allow viewers to appreciate the glimpse of some of the best scenes nature allows. A look behind the scenes of some sequences would be fascinating, and hopefully wouldn't break my heart in revealing any green screen magic. Despite the fact that this is being billed as a limited series for Netflix, Untamed could easily go on for years. Its premise of federal agents investigating serious crimes taking place within a national park they are based is almost too good not to be turned into an anthology. It certainly wouldn't be the strangest series Netflix could renew. The United States has 63 National Parks and Yosemite, which serves as the locale for Untamed, is only the 19th largest. Considering that, it feels like the potential for follow ups, whether they be tied directly or be complete standalone stories in other Parks is endless.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Untamed' brings Eric Bana into a murder mystery set in the wilds of Yosemite
'Untamed,' a quasi-police drama premiering Thursday on Netflix, is a vacation from most crime shows, set not in a big city or cozy village but in the wilds of Yosemite National Park. (Never mind that the series was shot in British Columbia, which has nothing to apologize for when it comes to dramatic scenery, and whose park rangers are not threatened by draconian budget cuts nor their parks by politicians' desire to sell off public lands.) The mountains and valleys, the rivers and brooks, the occasional deer or bear are as much a part of the mise-en-scène as the series' complicated, yet essentially straightforward heroes and villains. Lacking big themes, it's not so much meat-and-potatoes television as fish and corn grilled over a camp fire, and on the prestige scale it sits somewhere between 'Magnum P.I.' and 'True Detective,' leaning toward the former. Created by Mark L. Smith ('American Primeval') and Elle Smith ('The Marsh King's Daughter') and starring Eric Bana and Sam Neill, Antipodean actors wearing American accents once again, it's a limited series, though, for a while, it has the quality of a pilot, introducing characters that could profitably be reused — with perhaps a little less of the trauma peeking out at every corner. Of course, if the show becomes a fantabulous success, the Netflix engineers may contrive a way to make it live again; it's happened before. 'Untamed' starts big. Two climbers are making their way up the face of El Capitan when a woman's body comes flying over the cliff, gets tangled in their ropes and hangs suspended, dead. She is hanging there still — the climbers have been rescued — when Investigative Services Branch special agent Kyle Turner (Bana) rides in on his horse. 'Here comes f—ing Gary Cooper,' mutters grumbling ranger Bruce Milch (William Smillie) to new ranger Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a former police officer (and single mother, with a threatening ex) newly arrived from Los Angeles. (The horse, says Milch, who regards it as a high horse, gives him 'a better angle to look down on us lowly rangers.') What are the odds on Vasquez becoming Turner's (junior) partner? And on a difficult relationship developing into a learning curve ('This is not L.A. — things happen different out here') and turning almost … tender? More heroically proportioned and handsome than anyone else in the show, a man of the forest with superior tracking skills, Turner is also a mess — a taciturn mess, which also makes him seem stoic — barely holding himself together, drinking too much, living in a cabin in the woods filled with unpacked boxes, undone by the unaddressed family tragedy that broke him and his marriage. (The dark side of stoicism.) Sympathetic remarried ex-wife Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt, keeping it real), who herself is only 'as happy as I can be, I guess,' and sympathetic boss Paul Souter (Neill), try to keep him straight. 'You've locked yourself away in this park, Kyle,' Souter tells Turner. 'It's not healthy.' Turner, however, prefers 'most animals to people — especially my horse.' Nevertheless, he has a couple of friends: Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel), a wildlife manager — that means he shoots things, so be forewarned — also living in the woods, but without the cabin, is the toxic one; Mato Begay (Trevor Carroll), an Indigenous policeman, the nontoxic one. And he's sleeping with a concierge at the local nice hotel, just so that element is covered; it's otherwise beside the point. If the dialogue often has the flavor of coming off a page rather than out of a character, it gets the job done, and if the characters are essentially static, people don't change overnight, and consistency is a hallmark of detective fiction. The narrative wisely stays close to Turner and/or Vasquez; there are enough twists and tendrils in the main overlapping plots without running off into less related matters. (Keeping the series to six episodes is also a plus, and something to be encouraged, makers of streaming series. Your critic will thank you for it.) Still, between the hot cases and the cold cases, with their collateral damage; hippie squatters from central casting chanting 'Our Earth, our land;' a mysterious gold tattoo, indigenous glyphs and old mines — there is an especially tense scene involving a tight tunnel and rising water — the show stays busy. Though last-minute heavy surprises don't register emotionally — trauma overload, maybe — you will not be left wanting for answers, or closure. And you will learn quite a bit about vultures and their dining habits — not what you might think.
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
American Primeval creator has just made Netflix's True Detective that could last for years
Our review of Netflix's latest crime thriller The creator of hit American Primeval have just made Netflix's version of True Detective and it could last for years, despite its limited series status. All six episodes of Untamed are now available to watch on the major streamer as of today (July 17). It is easily a must binge watch show for this weekend for any fans of the two previously mentioned shows. According to the brief synopsis shared by Netflix, the crime thriller is based amidst the vast expanse of Yosemite National Park. A woman's suspicious death draws a federal agent into lawless terrain, where nature obeys no rules but its own. Untamed was created and written by father daughter team, Mark L. Smith and Elle Smith. Smith senior previously wrote the screenplays for The Revenant, for which Leonardo DiCaprio finally picked up an Oscar, and Twisters. He also created the historical drama American Primeval, which was a hit for Netflix earlier in the year. Together, the duo look to have repeated and offered up the closest thing to True Detective Netflix has been able to provide among all its binge worthy crime dramas and declared themselves as two of the steamer's must follow creatives. If anything they write next is as addictive as Untamed, I'll be there day one. True Detective is known for its A-list cast list and Untamed certainly competes in that area itself. It is lead by Australian actor Eric Bana, who has starred in Troy, The Time Traveller's Wife and played the Hulk before the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He is supported by Jurassic Park star Sam Neill, Wilson Bethel who also plays Bullseye in the Daredevil television series along with Rosemarie DeWitt and Lily Santiago. Together, along with a central mystery that follows many twists and turns, the series throws up a story even more gripping than any other murder mystery. In fact, I found myself gripped harder than any of True Detective's four seasons, which often fell by the wayside. There's no such danger here, with the Netflix series determined to clear everything up. Untamed, also like the HBO show, makes understated use of the supernatural and local folklore. It would spoil an early plot point to explain in detail how this is but while True Detective might thrust the ghost stories in the viewers' faces, Untamed keeps them rightfully in the shadows to reflect on its characters and spectacular setting. A clear benefit of setting a show in one of the US' celebrated National Parks is that some of the shots used can be as dramatic or intimate as desired. While Mark Smith's previous Netflix success, American Primeval, took advantage of its setting in its time period, Untamed does similar with its locality. Untamed only ever slows down to allow viewers to appreciate the glimpse of some of the best scenes nature allows. A look behind the scenes of some sequences would be fascinating, and hopefully wouldn't break my heart in revealing any green screen magic. Despite the fact that this is being billed as a limited series for Netflix, Untamed could easily go on for years. Its premise of federal agents investigating serious crimes taking place within a national park they are based is almost too good not to be turned into an anthology. It certainly wouldn't be the strangest series Netflix could renew. The United States has 63 National Parks and Yosemite, which serves as the locale for Untamed, is only the 19th largest. Considering that, it feels like the potential for follow ups, whether they be tied directly or be complete standalone stories in other Parks is endless.
