belated requiem for _Day Break_

[stumpy]

Okay, now that the episodes are online, I have been able to watch the rest of Day Break, the Taye Diggs vehicle that sorta combines 24 and Groundhog Day. It started airing as the mid-season substitute for Lost repeats, hoping to find its own audience and be picked up for the season.

But, it was canceled in mid run. I think it was pretty doggone good, overall - and I don't generally like cop dramas (I can barely stand the CSI/Law & Order/Cold Case/whatever shows that rule the genre). But I thought Day Break had good characters, including some who were genuinely likable, some who were corrupt, and some who were snarky jerks - all great components of a good cast. It had enough action. It had some romantic involvement and personal interaction - but not so much to make you sick. It had a series of ongoing mysteries, with closure on each adding to a larger mystery of an interlocking whole. It had some hot bodies. And, of course, it had the repeating-but-changeable-day science fiction hook. Moreover, it was all pulled off pretty well, especially for a first-season show working an angle that would be very easy to get wrong. Really, there wasn't much more you could ask for in a show of its type.

Not that I can't imagine why it failed. For one thing, it was in a time slot viewed by Lost fanatics, many of whom were not going to be satisfied by anything other than Lost. I can see some exec thinking that both shows have that almost-science-fiction hook, so maybe that time slot would let Day Break pick up some of the great Lost audience. But, the shows really aren't very similar, despite the hook.

(I watch Lost and I like Lost, mostly. But, Lost is an action-infused soap opera, at its core. Day Break is more detective show. Sure, it has some pretty people and some boy-dates-girl drama but, for the most part, the characters aren't running around and sleeping with each other. It doesn't have beefcake doctors or cowboys with rough edges who nevertheless have hearts of gold and are - dammit! - doing their best to make things work despite their very human (and sexy) flaws. So, the Lost audience really isn't the best drawing pool for Day Break.)

The other thing is that Day Break is just complicated enough to lose many people who aren't totally hooked from the start. There was a fairly large and expanding cast of characters, and each provides some clue in one of the various mysteries Detective Hopper (Diggs' character) confronts. And, the interplay between these characters isn't always straightforward, with mysteries that you think are just about solved blossoming into other mysteries, allies turning out to be enemies and vice-versa, etc. Meanwhile, the show's hook (the repeating day) can be tough to keep straight because there end up being three or four versions of the storyline every episode. "Didn't that guy just shoot Hopper?", "How come he is talking to her again?", "Why doesn't that bad guy remember what he did ten minutes ago?", etc. I thought it was done pretty well and it was manageable, but I can also see where the viewer would have to pay pretty close attention sometimes and that puts people off.

Those things can form a steep hill for a new show to climb. It's too bad, IMO. It was smart enough to keep me interested and not too full of the crap that annoys me: a fairly rare combo.

Oh well, I can hope that ABC gives it another shot during the next hiatus. They made the whole season (including like six or seven whole episodes that never even aired) available online. I can inflate that fact into speculation that the network still thinks the show has a chance. But, I am not holding my breath, either.

[bredon7777]

I quite liked the show, but I havent finished viewing all the episodes yet, so dont spoil it.

[stumpy]

Thus, the lack of spoiler tags.  ;)

I'm glad someone else is watching it. Maybe they are paying attention to the online view count, though I don't know how that would translate to air- or DVD-worthiness.

BTW, as an aside, I wasn't watching with this sort of critical eye, but this sort of show should be a bonanza to continuity nuts.  :P