Día Cero

...and that's the long and short of it. No, it isn't a 10, and but it certainly isn't a 1/10.

There's nothing stand out about the plot, and no edge of the seat moments. As others have said, the confusion that de Niro's character suffers from is hammy, clumsy, overdone and overly-repeated... and it adds nothing to the plot. It's just an annoyance to watch.

Plemmons is ok - not one of his better roles but his portrayal is fine. As is De Niro, just fine in his role but nothing special - sometimes even a little one dimensional (though the script may be to blame for that).

Angela Bassett is woeful though, unbelievable as a sitting president. Again that may be down to the script - her character trying to push urgency with no real necessity behind it. "I'm holding a press conference in 2 days so you need results by then" is the same line used in 70's police series/ films, where the Captain shouts "You've got 48 hours or it's your badge".

It was watchable, but I managed to follow the whole thing while working at home.

Just a bit average really.

I'm usually not into politics or political shows, but this one was truly refreshing. Perfect length, interesting to follow, and it has some great twists.

De Niro! I just figured this man is 81, but oh man - he delivered! Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant actor!

I also liked Jesse Plemons (Roger) a lot in this one.

Overall, 9/10, but super close to being 10/10 for me.

"Zero Day" started with a bang and finished with a crescendo. It was a whodunit on a national scale where just about anyone was a suspect. It was rooted in just enough realism with technology and governmental operations that "Zero Day" could really happen.

What kicked off everything was a one minute network outage. Now, you probably remember when Microsoft had their system glitch in 2024 and the chaos that it caused. Imagine a network outage on a national scale affecting every computer operated and monitored system. The devastating effects would be enormous.

Well, that's what happened in "Zero Day." From there it was a mad scramble by the U. S. government to find who the culprits were and why. As could be expected, habeas corpus was suspended and the President (played by Angela Bassett) created a Zero Day Commission headed by former President George Mullen (Robert De Niro) and imbued the commission with full state of emergency powers. Things were emotionally and politically tense. If the commission failed there would be hell to pay and national confidence in the U. S. government would take a severe hit. Those are very high stakes, but so is national security.

I loved just about every moment of it. Our vantage point as viewers was mostly from George Mullen's perspective, which put us in the driver's seat of the investigation. He made moves that doubtlessly pleased some and angered others, but positively we still wanted answers as much as he did.

Netflix.

De Niro and Plemmons? Oh come on, where do I sign? The show was good. Not only on the whodunit premise, but on the complexity of politics, relationships, aspirations, trauma, guilt, resolution. We can never win it all, we can never have it all, and De Niro as the lead show cases that. Most we can accomplish when we enter the dance is that we leave it with our head held high by picking the road less travelled. And that's awfully hard and rare.

Plemmons was great too. I do feel he is becoming better with age.

Good cinematography, I enjoyed the pace and the performances. It's a slow burner but engaging. I do recommend it.

The series starts well but loses its pace soon after in the name of investigation. The audience keeps wondering when the actual investigation would take place, as it focuses on everything from personal demons to surrounding pressures except the core investigation. It takes until Episode 5 (out of 6 episodes) for the series to truly get going, and the last two episodes are undoubtedly the best of this series.

Robert De Niro excels, and I think there's no doubt about his acting prowess. However, I feel a powerful actor like Angela Bassett was underutilized, and somehow her performance isn't up to the mark, possibly due to a sub-par script and weak dialogues.

Overall, it's a slow, uneventful series that has a very interesting and engaging plot on paper, but the makers fail to capitalize on it. It only truly excels because of the powerful acting and the strength of its final two episodes.