Glitch - Season 1 Review
This review of Season 1 of Glitch is spoiler-free!
Sometimes, when you create something or see something and it's idea, you think that you have the something brilliant. Writers are known to do this quite often, how could something they wrote that had such potential end up flopping? Well, today I bring you a series with a rather interesting premise that ended up not hitting the mark with me. That show is, as you can see by the title, the Australian show Glitch that is on Netflix. As of the past few years, Netflix has been gathering more content that wasn't created nationally, but more from international areas. While this has brought in widely praised shows such as Peaky Blinders and Dark, there are also shows like Glitch that seems great on paper, but really just don't work. Let's start with the easiest thing to point out, the story.
The story of Glitch is rather simplistic but interesting at first glance. In the town of Eurana, there is a disturbance reported at a nearby graveyard. When the police arrive they think someone has simply disturbed the graves, but as it turns out they are actually people who have come back to life. The 6 episode story deals with how they handle their new found life, their connections to people who may still be alive, and why they came back. Now, you may be thinking that that sounds like a really interesting premise for a show, and I thought this as well. The problem for me begins though with the way the story is told, for the first three episodes or so, the story circles the same area of topics and never truly goes anywhere. You're left with a very odd feeling of boredom as half of the season is spent doing exposition, and the other half actually moves the plot along. A lot of the criticism though with the story also involves the characters involved in it.
Without question, the main character of this story is police sergeant James Hayes (Patrick Brammall). Brammall carries the weight of the series on his back, the majority of the emotional punch is also attached to his character because one of the risen is closely attached to his own personal life. At first, this story point drew me in and kept me intrigued, but they avoid building on it very much through the first four episodes and seek to compress it all into the last two. Along with this, there's a lot of other characters who I truly don't feel need to be there and are just there as enhancement pieces for other characters in the story. One other major character though that has an arc all to his own is that of Patrick "Paddy" Fitzgerald (Ned Dennehy). His story is interesting, I will admit, but on its own, it really doesn't go anywhere which disappoints me.
This is where I discuss the main problems with the series: it's the antagonist of sorts in another cop known by the name of Vic (Andrew McFarlane). After experiencing a terrible event in the early going, something about Vic has changed and he is in a different frame of mind. I didn't really find the character to be all that intriguing as a villain and he just felt really awkward for the majority of his screentime. If the show chose not to worry about having someone like him in the show I think it would have been fine on it's own. Along with this, the show really relies on emotional punch and twists which don't always pay off. In a show like this you are required to be emotionally invested, but also think about future storybeats. For me, this show failed in both of those areas outside the story of James himself.
Glitch, for me, was a rather disappointing series with a premise that could have had much more done with it if creative changes were made. While I'm sure this show will really hit a good spot for many television people, it doesn't fit my tastes. The way that twists are used as major story points that are only there for shock value likens to the later seasons of The Walking Dead. I won't be returning to the world of Glitch, but I can see why some others would love this show. If the emotional punches do land with you, and you can deal with the rather awful antagonist, you can enjoy this show quite a bit. It just simply isn't for me.
