TV reviews

It’s episode five of Day Break – or at least it was last Wednesday but I’ve been away – so even though it might be cancelled soon, time for The Carusometer, I think.

The show started off reasonably well, with an adrenaline-heavy first episode that was perhaps a little too serious for its own good. The second half of its double-bill wasn’t quite so interesting, and the third episode continued in the same vein.

However, things picked up by the fourth episode, in which a new sort of format emerged. As well as being less po-faced, our hero (Taye Diggs) begins to take advantage of his constantly repeating day to help fix his partner’s love-life. It seems that now all the supporting characters have been introduced and fleshed out, the producers might be planning to devote subsequent episodes to a single character to find out what’s going on with them. It’s something that worked quite well for the fifth episode, too, which had some strong writing and clever use of sci-fi fave Adam Baldwin to come up with possible explanations for the time travel element of the show.

The producers are also judiciously using screen shorthand to cut out the repetition: we now know all the things that Diggs has to do each morning to cover up for the previously days surprises, and that’s now distilled down to a montage of split-second shots.

There’s still no sign of an explanation for what’s going on and no real idea why it’s of any import, but as an action-packed, surprisingly thoughtful and character-driven slice of mindless entertainment, it’s not bad and is worth watching if you want a bit of fun that doesn’t require much brainpower of an evening.

The Medium is Not Enough has declared Day Break to be a two or “Partial Caruso” on The Carusometer quality scale. A Partial Caruso corresponds to a show with two walk-on cameos by David Caruso, during both of which he takes off and puts on his sunglasses repeatedly. There may also have been discussions about his starring in the show, but the producers wrote that off as A Bad Idea, preferring someone who can’t be out-acted by children, small animals or portions of confectionery.