Seven people walk out of a grave in Yoorana, Victoria, and nobody in town can explain why. That simple premise drives Glitch, the ABC supernatural drama that ran for three seasons from 2015 to 2019. The show asks a question that is easy to state and hard to answer: what happens when the dead come back and nobody knows why.
The answer is not a monster in the basement or a conspiracy in the government. It is grief, memory, and the slow work of remembering who you were before you died. That choice is the show’s biggest strength, and it carries the whole series.
Trailer, via Matchbox Pictures.
The Town of Yoorana
Yoorana is not a big city with a morgue and a coroner. It is a small town with a cemetery, a police station, and a doctor’s office. James Hayes, played by Patrick Brammall, is the town’s policeman. He is called to the graveyard in the middle of the night and finds seven people walking around in perfect health, with no memory of who they are.
The show trusts the audience to sit with that image. It does not rush to explain the science behind the resurrection. It lets James and the other townspeople live with the strange fact of it. That patience pays off.
The Seven Who Returned
Each of the seven has a name and a face, and each carries a piece of the puzzle. Elishia McKellar, played by Emma Booth, is the local doctor who helps James keep the case secret. She is the closest thing the show has to a scientist, and she spends the series trying to understand what is happening to her patients.
The others are strangers to James until they start talking. They remember nothing of their lives, and the show respects that erasure. It does not fill in the blanks with flashbacks or voiceovers. It lets the characters stumble through their own memories, piece by piece, and watch the town react to them.
The Mystery of Why
The central question of Glitch is not how the dead came back. It is why. The show builds a web of connections between the seven, and it slowly reveals that they knew each other before they died. Some were friends. Some were enemies. Some were family.
The mystery is not solved quickly. The show drags out the reveal, and that pacing frustrates some viewers. But it rewards patience. By the end of the series, the reasons behind the resurrection are tied to old wounds and unfinished business. The show earns that ending by refusing to cheat.
The Third Season
The final season, which premiered on 25 August 2019, brings the story to a close. It answers the questions that had been building since the first episode. The show does not leave the mystery open-ended. It closes the loop, and the resolution is earned by everything that came before it.
The third season is the strongest of the three. It takes the emotional weight of the first two and pushes it further. The stakes are personal, and the show does not shy away from the cost of its answers.
What Works and What Does Not
The show is not perfect. Its pacing drags in the middle of the second season, and some viewers will find the slow burn frustrating. The second season introduces a new threat that feels less urgent than the original mystery. The show recovers in the third season, but the dip is noticeable.
Here is how the three seasons rank:
- The third season — the best, with the strongest payoff.
- The first season — strong setup, well executed.
- The second season — weakest, weighed down by a new threat that feels less compelling than the original mystery.
The cast is uniformly excellent across all three seasons. Brammall plays James with a steady, worn-in-the-skin exhaustion that anchors the show. Booth matches him as Elishia, a woman whose faith in science is tested by the impossible. The ensemble chemistry holds up across the run, even when the writing slows.
The Final Verdict
Glitch is a show about grief dressed as a supernatural mystery. It is not interested in special effects or chase scenes. It is interested in what happens to people when the dead come back and nobody knows why. That focus is rare in the genre, and it makes the show stand out.
The first season is the best entry point. It sets up the rules cleanly and introduces the characters without rushing. The second season is a bridge, and the third season is the payoff. Together, they make a complete story about memory, identity, and the people we leave behind.
The show is available to stream on Netflix, which means it is easy to catch up on. For anyone who wants a quiet, character-driven mystery, Glitch delivers. It is not a loud action show, and it is not a horror show. It is a drama about people who wake up in the wrong place and try to find their way back.
Glitch earns an 8 out of 10.
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