After decades of being an A-list film actor,Zero Day, which unfortunately wastes some solid work from the two-time Oscar winner and his ing cast. The past few years have seen De Niro gradually open himself to small-screen projects, beginning with the Bernie Madoff-focused HBO film The Wizard of Lies and Argentinian drama Nada, though the political thriller is his first leading role in a TV show.

Hailing from the creative trio of Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Michael Schmidt, the former of whom also serves as the showrunner, Zero Day sees America hit by a massive cyberterrorist attack resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 people, and with the threat of another attack in the near future. The show largely centers its focus on former U.S. President George Mullen who, after inadvertently drumming up public , is tasked by current President Evelyn Mitchell to lead the Zero Day Commission to investigate the attack, leading to his uncovering a deeper conspiracy.

Zero Day Quickly Loses Its Plot

The Show Forgets About Its Mystery Pretty Quickly

Ever since Kiefer Sutherland's 24, it's felt like many creatives have tried to chase the same pulse-pounding, award-winning success of the political action show, each delivering their own high-stakes threat. This has since ranged from fellow Sutherland show Designated Survivor assassinating the President and most of the cabinet in the Capitol Building to Keri Russell's The Diplomat, which sees her pitted against various international threats and internal conspiracies within the White House.

...with the show only running for six episodes, a terrible imbalance comes to the surface as the mystery is rushed to its ending.

With Zero Day, Newman, Oppenheim and Schmidt have actually found a surprisingly fresh and haunting approach to the genre with a tech-focused threat that keeps the story feeling unpredictable — at least initially. On the surface, it's Live Free or Die Hard with its reflections on the danger of so much of the country being tied to electronics that could be hacked and subsequently held hostage. That said, the show finds a way to make it timelier and more harrowing than the Bruce Willis sequel. That's why it's disappointing how quickly it moves away from this mystery.

Despite the interesting setup, the creative trio shifts from the mystery that served as the story's catalyst to focus on the ensemble cast of characters, which proves to be the show's biggest downfall. If Zero Day had double digits' worth of episodes, this approach would have been welcome, as every story should take the time to flesh out its characters alongside the larger plot. But, with only six episodes, a terrible imbalance comes to the surface as the mystery is rushed to its ending.

Zero Day's Characters Fail To Feel Fresh Or Well-Developed

A Sense Of Realism Doesn't Help Matters In The Slightest

While a bigger focus on the effect of the cyberterrorist attacks on the characters could've helped set the show apart from a crowded genre, Zero Day's characters make up its more underwhelming aspects. In having two of its creators and writers be former political journalists, the show so often strives for a sense of realism with their characters, be it Dan Stevens' abrasive political commenter or Gaby Hoffman's holier-than-thou tech billionaire trying to elbow her way into government involvement.

It's clear that Newman, Oppenheim, and Schmidt are unleashing some rage connected to the current political landscape through Zero Day's characters, and in one sense, it's an approach that should work. There are endless opportunities to mine these personalities for fictional storytelling, and yet, so many shows like this one settle for the most simplistic depictions of them.

Stevens' Evan Green is given a modicum of an extra dimension with a brief glimpse at his family and off-camera personality with his crew, all of which is far more thoughtful than his heavily critical screen persona belies. Similarly, Hoffman's Monica Kidder is certainly far more reserved than the infamous tech giant she's clearly based on, and yet whether it's her attempting to tout historical phrases to push her agenda or bragging about her wealth and holding her various companies' oversight on people's lives, Kidder never feels that far off from her real-world inspiration.

Zero Day's Cast Narrowly Keep The Show Afloat

De Niro & Co. Do A Mostly Solid Job Of Elevating The Material

Despite the underwhelming writing for them, Zero Day's characters are somewhat redeemed by the performances of the show's ensemble cast, namely De Niro and Lizzy Caplan as his Congresswoman daughter, Alexandra Mullen. For a good majority of the show, the two-time Oscar winner does what he does best by mugging it up for the camera and scowling at the other characters. However, there are moments in which he nicely infuses a sense of empathy and vulnerability into Mullen, whether it's amid his deteriorating mental state or his painful reflections on the death of his son.

Caplan, meanwhile, proves to be something of an interesting wild card throughout Zero Day's run. On paper, her character is another unfortunately routine figure, playing the estranged daughter to her prominent father who buries her nose in her work, and other things, to avoid talking to him. And yet, even before the show progresses, and we get to see intriguing new sides to her, Caplan unlocks deeper layers to Alex that keep us invested in her evolution, even if it ends up feeling unfortunately rushed in the show's overstuffed final two episodes.

But despite the better efforts of De Niro, Caplan and the rest of the surprisingly stacked ensemble, Zero Day can never really escape the fact it's not full enough to justify its series length. The middle two episodes elect to ramp down their focus on the show's main mystery to introduce a secondary one and focus on its characters, both of which are poor decisions. By the time we get back to the inciting incident, we're suddenly at the end and left with the majority of our questions unanswered, and a lack of fulfillment.