Rodger Corser’s character in Glitch, a mysterious man called John Doe, didn’t say much in the Australian series’ first season. That changes drastically in Season 2, now streaming on Netflix.
“All he seemed to do was fight and fuck in Series 1,” Corser said earlier this year. “It’s pretty much the same in Series 2, but they gave me double the dialogue, which still isn’t much.”
Like previous genre shows “Les Revenants” and “Resurrection,” this paranormal drama—from creators Tony Ayres and Louise Fox—examines the fallout when dead people somehow come back to life.
These formerly dead folks, called the Risen in “Glitch,” are nothing like the undead zombies in “The Walking Dead.” They look exactly like they did before they died, and like live people, they bleed. When the Risen try to leave a specific area, the bleed from their eyes and die permanently.
In Season 1, police officer James Hayes (Patrick Brammel) and Dr. Elishia McKellar (Genevieve O’Reilly) try to keep the Risen a secret from residents in the fictional town of Yoorana for very different reasons. Hayes wants to protect his resurrected first wife, Kate (Emma Booth). The good doctor’s reasons? Well, they become clearer in the new season.
The six new episodes also explain why the Risen can’t leave Yoorana, as well as “the science behind what happened” to them, Corser said, and introduces new threats to the group.
And yes, fans will learn all about Corser’s character. The “fighter and fornicator” was the only one of the seven original Risen not given flashback scenes in Season 1.
“He gets his memory back and we see a lot more of who he was and why he has a connection with Dr. Elishia McKellar. There’s a reason why they’re drawn to each other,” Corser said, teasing: “Maybe they’re at the epicenter of why all this happened.”
More screen time gives the veteran Aussie actor a chance to explore the character in both present day and time-jumping to his past, which includes a prison yard whipping and wrongful conviction for highway robbery, murder and the desecration of a corpse.
No wonder John Doe was so angry when he first came back to life.
Corser, however, was happy to return to “Glitch” after headlining the comedy “Doctor Doctor,” in which he plays a hotshot surgeon who is decidedly more verbal than John Doe. (U.S. viewers can stream “Doctor Doctor,” titled “The Heart Guy,” at Acorn TV.)
“Glitch” owes its second season in large part to Netflix, Corser said. The service injected new life—and money—into the show after it streamed in the U.S. in 2016. The first season originally aired in 2015 on Australian network ABC, and hadn’t been renewed until Netflix expressed interest.
“It’s quite exciting,” he said. “They’ve really done a great job this year, because there were a lot of unanswered questions from Series 1, and some of the feedback online was a bit like, ‘Oh, is this going to be like “Lost” where you set up all these scenarios and you never answer them?’”
“This season,” Corser assured fans, “has a lot more payoff for viewers.”
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