Netflix’s new Robert De Niro-led hit series toys with real-world references but hasn’t got the faintest clue what to do with themSpoilers aheadFor decades, movies and TV shows that feature the president of the United States as a character have tried, often playfully, to keep pace with the headlines. Sometimes they even managed to move a little faster than real-life progress; Morgan Freeman was chosen to lead the nation in Deep Impact a decade before the election of Barack Obama, and plenty of women have occupied the on-screen Oval Office, anticipating a glass-ceiling break that has yet to actually happen.So at first, the new Netflix series Zero Day comes across like a slightly and understandably mistimed attempt at topicality by focusing on George Mullen (Robert De Niro), a former US president known for bipartisan cooperation, who only served one term before stepping down to deal with the death of his son, and who later works closely with the current president, Evelyn Mitchell (Ange...
Zero Day is a Netflix political thriller that follows former President George Mullen (Robert De Niro) and President Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett) as they respond to a catastrophic cyber-attack resembling a digital 9/11. The series, created by Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Michael Schmidt, attempts to blend real-world political signifiers with a suspenseful narrative but struggles to create a coherent or compelling political reality. Critics argue that while the show includes elements like a bipartisan presidency, a cyber-crisis, and a storyline involving Mullen's potential dementia, it fails to offer a meaningful political perspective or originality, instead relying on familiar tropes and disjointed references to contemporary politics.
