Sometimes life just isn't fair, not fair at all and injustices abound like in today's case when we take a look at "Day Break" a TV series that came out in 2006 boasting the likes of Taye Diggs in the lead role as Det. Brett Hopper. So what is "Day Break" about? After all the title is uncreative as there are several TV shows and movies that all share that title, what makes this one unique? Well, "Day Break" finds Det. Brett Hopper stuck in a time loop where he's framed for the murder of a District attorney and as he relives the same day he makes different choices and finds that he's in the middle of a much deeper conspiracy. It's basically "Groundhog Day" meets any cop show. As done as that premise sounds, at least in this day and age, "Day Break" was actually very enjoyable and I'll explain why after the break;
"Day Break" was released in 2006 and was created by "L O S T" alumni Paul Zbyszewski (I'm never spelling that again) and the cast is a veritable who's who of recognizable names and faces before they were better-known actors, Ian Anthony Dale, Johnathan Banks (Mike from "Breaking Bad"), Raymond Cruz (Tuco from "Breaking Bad"), Jim Beaver and Mitch Pileggi (Bobby Singer and Samuel Campbell from "Supernatural"), my favorite unrelated Baldwin, the great and always awesome Adam Baldwin, and fellow "L O S T" alumni Nestor Carbonell. However, like most decent TV shows that find themselves canceled all too soon, it committed the cardinal sin of casting TV cancer and that comes in the form of Moon Bloodgood, an actress who had a lead role in "Journeyman"...another show that ended all too soon. "Day Break" didn't so much as get a chance as halfway through its 13-episode run (so 6 episodes in) ABC pulled the plug on it. YIKES! The reason behind the cancellation? Viewers. "Day Break" just wasn't drawing eyeballs and nicely enough the cast had great things to say about it;
Taye Diggs said; "We didn’t get enough viewers. The network gave us a shot, and that’s what happened. I had a really great time on the show. It was one of the best scripts out there. It was the timing. Who knows why people tune in to what they do, but apparently they were not watching us."
Moon Bloodgood added " “I thought Day Break and Journeyman were great shows. Sometimes people want to say, “Oh, they’re too intelligent.” I give audiences way more credit. I don’t think it was that we weren’t good. I think it’s timing. I think sometimes things just don’t catch fire. Maybe it wasn’t good? But I know that I thought it was good and I, to this day, think they were good. I wouldn’t have done them if I didn’t think they were good."
and lastly Adam Baldwin had this to say; " “I'll tell you, Day Break holds up if you watch it. If it was on a Netflix-type format where you could just sit down and watch it chronologically, it would really hold up. I think it had a big challenge being on commercial television and having the breaks in between. It's not a linear show. Like Memento: you wouldn't want to watch that if you had to have wait a week to see the second half or whatever. But I really enjoyed that."
All sentiments I agree with, especially Adam's appeal to Netflix and the whole idea of timing! Sometimes TV shows come out at the wrong time or in the wrong format and I agree, had "Day Break" appeared on Netflix I have a feeling it'd get much more recognition, same with "Awake" and "Journeyman" as well...but alas I'm not in possession of a time machine. That being said, TV One managed to acquire the last remaining 7 episodes of "Day Break" and aired them along with ABC.com burning off the last few episodes since they were productively in the can. I remember seeing the trailers for "Day Break" and being interested but I was not able to catch an episode. Around that time Hulu was still in its infancy and so it was the go-to place for shows currently airing or previously aired "Day Break" was one of those shows, but I never got around to checking it out...that is until fast forward many years later where much to my enjoyment and surprise I managed to find The Complete Series of "Day Break" in a dual disc DVD set in a nice little thrift store that's very close by. Needless to say, I scooped it up for this very project and I was delighted to find that "Day Break" was actually pretty awesome.
The series pulls no punches in showing exactly what's at stake for Det. Hopper as the first loop is the literal worst day of his life, he loses his girlfriend, his name is dragged through the mud and he goes to prison. It's only after Hopper recognizes he's in a loop that the series gets off the ground but it doesn't pull back on the tension. Unlike other shows of the same nature where death or something else is a trigger for the loop, Hopper has no clue what's causing the loop (nor do we the audience) and therefore has no clue if his current cycle will be his last one and thus the desperation to keep everyone alive (his girlfriend) is valid. That's another thing, Hopper can't self-trigger a loop, the loop resets when the day is over. What's even worse is that any injuries Hopper incurs are retained and thus Hopper has to be careful not to get injured in a loop lest he becomes incapacitated. Naturally, Hopper retains all the information from his loops, and therefore as he unravels the conspiracy he starts to bypass a lot of his previous steps and that's good because it shows he's adapting to the circumstances and making it work in his favor.
Now Hopper is the only person who experiences the loops, HOWEVER, despite being in a time loop, Hopper can influence his next loop by performing an action in a previous loop that redeems his past. You see Hopper isn't the easiest person to get along with and has burned a few bridges, by repairing those bridges Hopper gains allies who can help him in the next loop, BUT this subtle influence can also work in reverse where if he doesn't redeem himself he can lose an ally, and he nearly does. "Day Break" also goes along with the "Friends" style of episode titles, rather than give you an idea of what the episode is about "Day Break" will just straight up tell you with episodes citing various actions Hopper takes as in "What If They Run", "What If He Walks Away" and so on.
Taye Diggs has a lot of charisma to carry the show and he has a lot of help, if it's not him on camera it's Ian Anthony Dale and Mitch Pileggi who are picking up the slack and they're both very good at being legit detectives searching for who they believe to be a dirty cop. The great thing about this is when these two do end up getting in over their heads and find themselves on the wrong end of their investigation Hopper's resets bring them back to life (it also erases all the good investigating they've done). When the full conspiracy is revealed it's not some soap opera-style bulsh*t, all the connections actually make sense and you as the audience feel happy that you went along for the ride. Everyone in the cast does their job and does it right, with the exception of a spoiler character who I really didn't care for, but let's just say he's the brother of a character and this brother isn't mentioned until way later.
That being said timing is everything and "Day Break" was ahead of its time. Sure, the "Groundhog Day" premise is starting to get as old as itself what with "Death Day" and its sequel, "Re:Zero", "Boss Level" and even the video games "Majora's Mask" and "Death Loop". There's a lot one can do with a premise like this and "Day Break" really maximized the idea as much as they could without letting the show get too mystical. I like that, there's no possible explanation given as to what caused the loop, it was just a cosmic force that wanted Hopper to fix things and save his ass. "Day Break" was a great show and if you happen to come across it, add it to your collection, it's worth checking out and you won't be disappointed.
Side Note: I found out the entire series is available on Youtube! CHECK IT OUT!
Anyway, that'll do it for me as far as "Project Canceled" for 2023 is concerned, do I have more shows I wanna take a look at? YES! I got "The Cape" lined up, Christian Slater's "My Own Worst Enemy" and I may even re-visit "Cult" and see how I feel about it years later. I could dive back into "Alcatraz" as my wife has mentioned she wanted to re-watch it, I could take a look at "Do No Harm", "Forever" and maybe even "Three". The world is oyster right now and I have a bunch of canceled media to sink my teeth into. So for now I'm not calling my shots, for now, I'll give you guys a hat tilt and a "See you next year."
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