4 out of 5

Directed by: Emma Freeman

covers season 1

“I’ve seen this before,” you’ll think, with the somber opening theme, and the setup involving people inexplicably returning from the dead.  Not just in The Returned, but the concept has certainly appeared elsewhere, and there are a couple of horribly telegraphed signs in the first episode that don’t suggest its going to have much new to add to the concept.

Then, six episodes later, even when that telegraphing inevitably proves true, you might be stirred from your TV mainlining with the errant question of why Glitch ended up being much better than many of its similar peers.

The setup mentioned is pretty much all you need to know, though of course there ends up being more to the show.  Glitch adds the unique wrinkle early on of the risen literally crawling from their graves, which is a cool visual, but thereafter it includes some typical elements of forcefully isolating the returned (six in all) to one location – the fictional Australian town of Yoorana – the fish-out-of-water experiences of the group adjusting to their post-dead lives, and the clusterfuck of trying to keep everyone contained and their existence a secret.  As discoverers of the returned, cop James Hayes (Patrick Brammall) and doctor Elishia McKellar (Genevieve O’Reilly) occasionally make some questionable tv-logic decisions, but all in all they’re capable narrative anchors, responding to things intelligently and believably.  And the writers smartly keep bickering about what’s what and what to do to a minimum.

Instead… Focusing on the risen’s rediscoveries of their pasts, as this process has stricken them of all or some memories.  But it’s not even the mystery of what happened – post that lame telegraphing, the show seems (wisely) intent on not over-Losting anything – it’s really just how fascinating and multi-faceted each character and their history turns out to be.  These stories are interesting to watch, completely removed from the main concept.  What the concept adds, though, is it gives each the ability to reflect on their actions, and that’s where the writing becomes quite graceful.  The interactions with an ex-wife are amazingly bereft of most cliches, and are very heart-felt, and the way our initial impressions of some characters (and their own “impressions” of themselves) shifts with more information is compelling TV.  Its also nice that they let this happen organically, not visibly dividing the focus up per episode or anything.

When the central mystery finally starts to turn over in the season’s latter half, we’re invested in everyone’s fate, which makes some additional twists pretty damn effective.

So glitch is an interesting trick.  It can be slow, and definitely takes some piece-placement to find its footing, but some of the less clever elements of its opening and setup pave the path for a really excellent character drama, that smartly uses its sci-fi premise to go deeper than usual with that drama.  Season 2 will probably jump the shark with twists and turns, but its be pretty fantastic if they chose instead to build upon the solid and intelligent foundation of these six episodes.