TV Review: Taye Diggs Starts as Detective Brett Hopper in Day Break

Taye Diggs stars as Detective Brett Hopper, a cop wrongly accused of murder, in the tense, ABC action-packed thriller DAY BREAK. Set in Los Angeles and delivered in bits and pieces of tight shots, the series takes a page from the classic comedy Groundhog Day.

In fact it is Groundhog Day reinvented as a 12 week mid-season replacement series for Lost. Each morning, Hopper wakes up in the same day, scrambling to find a way to exonerate himself of a crime he didn't commit (as far as we know). Hopper wakes up the day after the murder of the assistant district attorney, so we never really find out exactly what happened.

The plot grows more complex each "new" day; involving his partner, his girlfriend's ex-husband(Moon Bloodgood), a gang member snitch (Ramon Rodriguez), an overzealous homicide detective(Mitch Pileggi) and some professional killers led by mysterious man in a rock quarry (Jonathan Banks), making for a very tangled web to unwind. This complexity, along with the tense momentum, makes the show hard to resist, despite its gimmicky nature.

I like this show though I was sure after previews and the pilot (ABC aired the pilot and the first episode together). I have a tendency to wonder about trying movie ideas on TV. MASH not withstanding, they don't work (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Clueless, etc.) However, Day Break may be another exception for three reasons.

First, Hopper doesn't wake up at the exact same time and place each new day as one would believe from the pilot. This would have worn on viewers by week four. Secondly, as hopper learns from new choices so does the viewer, setting up an almost interactive detective story. Lastly, the cast is huge (9 at last count), beautiful (Rodriguez, Diggs, Bloodgood) and well directed by Rob Bowman (The X-files).

The mysterious man in the rock quarry advices Hopper: "For every decision, there's a consequences". The decision to transform Groundhog Day from comedy movie to dramatic TV show may have the consequence for producing this year's best mid season replacement series.