The original post: /r/television by /u/NewAgePhilosophr on 2025-07-20 23:48:01.
I just started watching Untamed on Netflix and boy am I bored. All the characters are serious, monotone, absolutely no differentiaring character traits, nothing that makes them interesting in the slightest. You could literally swap the actors in the roles and I probably wouldn’t even notice. It’s so bad that I don’t even know their names and I’m in the 4th episode.
Mind you, the cast is excellent, they’re truly doing well with with what they’re given. You have Eric Bana, Sam Neill, Rosemarie DeWitt, etc. They’re all good actors. The premise and the writing is good. Really does makes it a good murder-mistery.
Now, I’d like to compare to two shows: Dexter… and also Banshee which I watched last year. These two shows also have amazing actors, bit of a serious tone dealing with murders and other police drama things… yet these shows had characters with individual personalities and backstories that made the super interesting. All the characters kept me engaged, I want more on the next episode.
Point is, I am noticing a lot of these monotone soulless characters in a lot of streaming shows. Disney and Netflix are very guilty of this with the exception of some good shows like Andor and Stranger Things. Hell, even regular TV shows like the Rookie are just amazing with excellent characters and character development.
What’s deeply troubling about this is that these shows tend to have good budgets… yet they always lack in the writing department. Why do they do this?