Untamed tops streaming charts: Eric Bana series gets 24.6 million views within a week of premiere

Looks like Untamed has impressed everyone enough to top Netflix's English-language series list with 24.6 million views. The series, created and showrun by Mark L. Smith and Elle Smith, boasts an impressive cast consisting of Sam Neill, Wilson Bethel, and Eric Bana. It follows protagonist Kyle Turner's (Eric Bana) attempts to uncover the circumstances behind the death of a woman.

Set in the confines of the Yosemite National Park, creator Mark L. Smith wanted to explore a different side of Yosemite. It seems that he may have accomplished that with Netflix's Untamed. During his interview with Tudum on July 18, 2025, Mark L. Smith said this:

“Everyone thinks of Yosemite as this beautiful place with all the vistas and all the scenery, but we were trying to touch on the dangers that are just beyond that. I love stripping all the cheats away, stripping all the more modern tools that people can use. It really gets down to the character and what they can find within themselves.”

Mark L. Smith is having a great year because Untamed is his second series that has performed exceedingly well this year. American Primeval, the series he created, also topped the list on Netflix when it was released on January 9, 2025. Now, the new thriller he created with his daughter Elle Smith also seems to have topped the streaming platform's list.

Who stars in the series?

The Netflix series, with six episodes, boasts an impressive cast consisting of:

1. Eric Bana as Kyle Turner
2. Sam Neill as Paul Souter
3. Rosemarie DeWitt as Jill Bodwin
4. Lily Santiago as Naya Vasquez
5. Wilson Bethel as Shane Maguire

Lily Santiago's Naya Vasquez is described as somewhat of the secondary protagonist of the series. Co-showrunner Elle Smith described Naya's role in the series like this:

“Because Vasquez is new to the park, we get to see the park through her eyes. We get to understand what this job is, and see the beauty of the park, but also the dangers.”

What is Netflix's Untamed about?

From the trailer above, it seems that the six-episode series is a murder mystery within Yosemite National Park. As a body is discovered, Agent Kyle Turner, who works in the National Parks Service, investigates the cause of death. National Parks Service ranger Naya Vasquez assists Turner in this investigation. The synopsis for the series reads:

"UNTAMED is a character-driven mystery thriller that follows Kyle Turner, a special agent in an elite branch of the National Parks Service who works to enforce human law in nature’s vast wilderness. The investigation of a brutal death sends Turner on a collision course with the dark secrets within the park, and in his own past."

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All six episodes of Untamed are accessible through Netflix.

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