Date of airing: November 15, 2006 (ABC)
Nielsen ratings information: 10.16 million viewers, 6.8/10 in Households, 3.6/9 with Adults 18-49
written by: Paul Zbyszewski
directed by: Rob Bowman
Back in 2006, this series premiered and quickly went off the air when I was slowly
learning that there was more to television than just LOST. So, as the years went by and I was looking for more TV shows to watch, I never
had the chance to learn anything else about the show except its premise
and part of the cast. More than sixteen years after its quick life, I finally decided to
take a look into DAY BREAK. I dig time-travel-related stuff, and since I am currently watching SEVEN DAYS and EARLY EDITION, I figured "why the heck not" and threw on this show about a character stuck in a conspiracy and a time loop, forcing him to solve one to get out of the other. A fast-paced action thriller show with some crazy stuff happening in its first hour (none of them related to character depth), with a charming
and good-looking cast (I always had a crush on Moon Bloodgood ever since 2007's JOURNEYMAN, which, just by coincidence, was also a time-travel show), and with a time loop premise that just fits right into the things I like. Now I am intrigued to find out why the show failed with audiences, even though I may have gotten a couple of answers after finishing this episode.
Because I must say, I did not really like this pilot. The plot was so fast-paced, it did not even give the characters time to unfold themselves, to introduce themselves to the viewers, to tell me why I should root for their survival and continue following them on their adventures. The episode forgot to let Brett Hopper be emotionally affected by the fact that he is trapped in a time loop, and that his entire family is being threatened. I have no idea if there was a cut scene or if the copy of the episode I had missed a scene or something, but the first time Brett woke up to the day he has already lived through, he did not seem particularly surprised that he was going through a seemingly supernatural event. He was just confused. Just angered. But not at all weirded out. And the third time he woke up at 6:18 a.m., he was silently and calmly and conveniently looking at Rita, as if everything was good and fine and normal with him. Brett apparently accepted quite quickly that he was living in a time loop, and he did not have any questions about what the heck was going on here. The only thing he was concerned about what was going on in his life family-wise. As if Rita’s death and the threat against his sister Jennifer’s life and the fact that he was framed for a murder he did not commit were more important for him to deal with than a supernatural element that could not be happening, except you are dreaming.
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| Taye Diggs gets to show off some of his muscles in this dress-up. |
And this is where I usually
blame broadcast networks and their hard work to put quantity over
quality, to create programming that must excite the audience, to convince them to stick around for the action and thrill that is going to happen. Every time I watch a broadcast network pilot from the 2000s and early 2010s, especially those high-concept dramas that tried to emulate the success of LOST, I wonder why so few of them decided to focus on the characters and almost all of them just went in on the fast-paced action and mystery of the plot. What most high-concept TV dramas have not learned from the first two hours of LOST is that the island survival drama focused on the characters in the beginning – the only mystery you found there was the polar bear, the "monster" in the woods, and the French radio signal. What you get after 40 minutes of DAY BREAK is a time loop, a conspiracy to murder, another murder, an abusive relationship in the family, a gang member testifying against his gang, and a whole group of shadowy people who seem rather surprised that Brett Hopper knew that all this was about the dead Assistant District Attorney.
I just asked myself that question, and I think I now know the answer as to why DAY BREAK flopped so horribly back in 2006, even with LOST as a great partner in crime on television. The pilot was pushing the viewer right into the story, without any backstory, letting them fend for themselves to figure out what is going on. In this case, it might have been partly on purpose though, because, like the audience, Brett did not know what was happening, and he just started to put the dots together, even if he did not have anything to put the dots together with. All he and the audience knew after one hour is that this is a time loop situation, and that Brett is innocent, and that he pretty much has to check his get-out-of-jail-quickly card, so that he can uncover a conspiracy that might include characters he has not even met yet. For a pilot episode, it may have been a good idea to give some answers, or at least start the episode not at 6:18 a.m., but with a scene or two that was set before Brett's fateful and always repeating day. Just to get some backstory delivered, especially when it comes to the story involving Damien Ortiz, which felt like an add-on for Brett to solve when he does not get any further solving the actual conspiracy against him.
I am not sure if Taye Diggs was the right guy for the main role, but this is at least an action mystery TV drama from the mid-2000s with a
black actor in the lead role, which seems like it was a novelty back in
the day. I am also not sure if there is any chemistry between Brett and
Rita, but it looked and sounded as if the relationship was very
fresh in the eyes of other characters. Jennifer, for example, recognized
Rita’s name in the first iteration of Brett’s day, but had to ask “Rita
who?” during the second (that is a pretty huge inconsistency within just
one episode), so Brett and Rita must be pretty new as a couple (yet she
had always dreamt about having Brett meet her mother). The other
characters also had nothing of worth and depth, making me question when I
will get the chance to fear for their lives. I
did not really care about Jennifer being a battered wife, because she has
never been introduced to me as a character, and neither was her abusive
husband. I never cared about Andrea as Brett’s partner on the police force,
because she just gets thrown into the story with some baggage, in addition to the opportunity that she might also be the villain. In the end, I never even cared about Brett trying to save Rita,
because their relationship in the show started in the most generic
way possible: with love and affection in bed. It could not have gotten any more boring than that.
Still, the pilot had something going for itself. Even though LOST ruined us all with its mystery plots, and NBC double-ruined it with THE EVENT and REVOLUTION, and ABC screwed it up later with FLASHFORWARD, I do still like mystery stories, and here is to hoping that some answers were given as to what the heck was going on. Picking up DAY BREAK for this watch, I was also thinking about doing the same with KIDNAPPED (probably even less known as a TV show than DAY BREAK, because I do not even know what that show is about), and here I at least know from past online talks that DAY BREAK was concluded, even if it ended with a slight cliffhanger. It is probably a good thing I have not heard how DAY BREAK ended, because I am secretly just waiting to get angry about the premature ending.
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| This is the event that needs to be prevented. |
The show could turn into something of an Action Jackson version of EARLY EDITION midway through the season’s run, if the writers were interested in pausing the ongoing story and just have Brett be the hero and save some random lives. He sort of did that already on his first repeat of the day, when he was saving the woman from being hit by a bus, and I am pretty sure he will try to save her again (as well as all the other people he might see dying by accidents throughout the day), just for the writers to reveal that her accident was part of the plot all along. It could also be interesting to see how a show that is set on the same day, depicting it over and over, will be interesting after a while. Starting the day in the same way can be boring quite quickly, and at one point there are not a lot of options available as to how to continue the story – if after 13 episodes the day does not even resemble the original day any longer, then why even bother with the time loop premise? It is as if the writers used it as Brett’s chance to solve his biggest case yet, but because of the reset button, he is allowed to screw it up on a regular basis. But it could quickly become tiresome having to hear Brett explain to the same characters over and over what he is going through – if he decides to start bringing some of his closest friends into his little secret.
So, here I am, getting my feelers for a show that only survived for 13 episodes. I guess DAY BREAK is just part of television history now, about to be forgotten more and more with every year that brings us too much television. That means this is the perfect time to start the show again and get into the thick of it all.
