TV Review: Glitch (2015)

Glitch (2015) created by Tony Ayres and Louise Fox

One night, six people literally dig their way out of their graves in Yoorana, Australia. The local police officer, James Hayes, is called out for a disturbance in the cemetery and at first he assumes they are some drunk people being weird and vandalizing graves. He calls in the local doctor, Elishia McKellar, for assistance. The people are all in perfect health except they have no memories of who they are. After they are cleaned up, Hayes recognizes one of them as his wife who died two years ago from cancer. The others all died at different times (one of them is Paddy Fitzgerald, the original mayor of Yoorana back in the 1800s) under different circumstances. The officer and the doctor don't want word to get out about the resurrections, partly from worry that the six will become scientific guinea pigs, partly from personal connections. The people themselves want answers, especially as they slowly recover their memories and realize they have unresolved issues to deal with. The show is more like the French series Les Revenants, with its interpersonal dramas and search for meaning about what has happened, and less like The Walking Dead, which has personal dramas but also plenty of gore and mayhem. Zombies aren't the enemy here.

While the initial premise is interesting, the plot moves slowly and becomes more and more conventional. The most interesting problem is Hayes's, who has subsequently married his dead wife's best friend. His new wife is about to give birth, which brings up a lot of issues for all three of them. The other story lines are more run-of-the-mill and seem randomly thrown together. Most of the story lines don't resolve by the end of the six-episode series. Clearly the makers hoped to get another season, which has gone into production as of January 2017. The release date has not been announced as of July 2017.

Glitch is a not bad but not amazing show currently streaming on Netflix. Maybe it will come to Amazon? I've provided a link that should update when a DVD becomes available in the US Amazon store.