Zero Day Season 1 Review: Neither Thrilling nor Politically Intriguing

Zero Day is a limited series of mildly interesting political intrigue that, despite its star-studded cast, struggles to approach meaningful political commentary or enjoyable television.

For a series with a cast that includes Robert De Niro, Angela Bassett, Jesse Plemons, Lizzy Caplan, and Dan Stevens, Zero Day is an unexpected slog.

Netflix has hit its stride lately with its political thrillers, especially The Night Agent, so it makes sense that it would attempt to hit the jackpot again. Sadly, the series struggles to stand out in a sea of excellent political thrillers like Paradise and The Recruit.

The series follows the events after a cyberattack on all American infrastructure and systems, which De Niro’s elderly former president, George Mullen, has been commissioned to investigate.

Zero Day is neither realistic enough to have worthwhile commentary nor unrealistic enough to be an interesting watch. It is an attempt to appeal to the better selves of all Americans to bring us together, but despite the stacked cast, this message does not feel particularly effective. 

Angela Bassett and Connie Britton have shamefully little to do, but Jesse Plemons gives a solid performance as Roger Carlson.

Mullen’s aide’s carefully manicured calm barely covers the tension of being caught in one too many shady plots and friends. To his credit, Dan Stevens is a very punchable combination of Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro TV personality. 

While De Niro tries his best to convey his character’s trustworthiness with quiet dignity and control, it is not a very convincing performance, especially since we know George is struggling to keep up with reality.

He is struggling with dementia and mental health issues (quite on the nose), and despite his supposed “decency,” he still insists on keeping his position as the head of the agency investigating the cyberattack that triggers the events of the series.

A good portion of the issues plaguing Zero Day are due to its six-episode runtime.

There is a lot of history hinted at between the characters, like the affair between George and Valerie (and we’re supposed to like this guy?), but we don’t get to see why that history matters.

This more focused approach could be interesting if De Niro gave a more enthralling performance — his perennial calm becomes boring after a certain point.

There are other plots in the story that we get tiny glimpses of before they are snatched away too quickly, like what the relationship between Alex (George’s nepo baby Congresswoman daughter) and Roger is, or why Sheila, George’s wife, would possibly go to the woman her husband had an affair with to convince her to be his chief of staff (Scandal, much?).

I was not convinced that George was indeed the best person to lead this Zero Day commission, whose suspension of civil liberties is eerily similar to the post-9/11 Patriot Act, considering we never really got to see him be a good person.

We are told that he is decent and has a strong moral compass, but he also tortures Dan Stevens’ Evan Green for information after arresting him without a warrant, so it’s all a bit confusing. 

The premise of the series should be terrifying: a cyberattack on all of America’s infrastructure and technological systems for a whole minute that kills more than 3,000 people, and we have no idea who did it or why. But no one in the cast seems to be able to communicate the stakes of this clearly enough, whether through performance or simple exposition.

We see some brief riots and protests, but they seem to be relatively insignificant and isolated incidents.

The series also does not seem to understand where it falls in terms of its political commentary. It’s pointing to a vague “we should all come together despite our differences” that doesn’t quite seem to be connected to reality, where one side (our current administration) just doesn’t have any respect for constitutionality.

This argument is ironically made by Mullen’s daughter, who (surprise!) inadvertently ends up involved in the attack, not knowing that people would die. According to the series, she’s just too naive and young, which is why she turns to her father for help.

It’s a particularly condescending turn for the series.

Writers Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Michael Schmidt clearly want to appeal to what unifies Americans, but most of this far too obvious attempt falls flat.

The American exceptionalism is strong with the assumption that the encroachment of the Zero Day commission’s powers on civil rights can only be trusted in George’s hands, when there is more and more evidence to prove otherwise. But the show seems to take a mostly uncritical approach to George’s actions too.

The direction also fails to distinguish itself from the standard, slick look of most political thrillers, but the score does help to keep tension going throughout the show, even if the script doesn’t necessarily do so.

Zero Day fails to stand out as a political thriller, with a great cast that has a weak script to work with, strangely outdated politics, and a protagonist that it fails to critically examine, mostly resulting in a middling and forgettable six episodes.

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Zero Day is streaming now on Netflix.

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