“When I heard it way back, the earliest thing I heard that caught my attention is that this character is caught in the same day and that immediately peaked my interest and all the obvious questions came after that… Would it be redundant? How are we gonna keep the storylines coming? And once they were all explained to me, I thought it was a very unique and interesting device. Obviously, [the writers] have all this thought out and they have enough stories to last, I’m sure, eight years. But, Pauley Z. I call him, the creator, he knows why these days keep repeating, but he’s not going to tell anybody until the end of the series.”

“You’ll have to forgive us if we come off as a little sarcastic or maybe defensive, but we knew that we would be dealing with a lot of these questions… And I just need to remind you that this is something very special to us. We think it’s very different. It’s unique, but at the same time, it’s still a television show. And everybody here, we all know what we’re doing. So when you ask us a question like, ‘Well, how do we get somebody to view in who hasn’t been watching regularly?’ You know, how do you get anybody to view in?”

“African American folks, we’re not yet in the position of power… If this show were to succeed, white folks could just sit back on their laurels and say, ‘Oh well, he’s the one. We don’t need to work with anybody else.’ If every black dramatic actor were to fall off the face of the Earth, people would mourn Denzel and Morgan Freeman. But they would still have the Tom Cruises. Until we get to a point where we can control things in Hollywood, and I’m confident we’ll get there, we’re still in a position where we kind of have our hand out.”

So I watched the show last night. Initial impressions: Diggs’ character seems to have acclimated to his condition – reliving the same day over and over – fairly easily. Easier than Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, anyway. True, Diggs is playing a detective, meaning he’s bound to be a little sharper than the average joe, but still, this is a unique situation for anyone to be in.

Multi-cultural cast – a plus. Skinner from The X-Files – another plus (though I kept thinking he should be an authority figure and not just another cop). It wasn’t hard to figure out which elements of the day were being remembered by Diggs, though it was slightly disorienting at first.

The rules appear to make a kind of sense – like Murray in Groundhog Day, Diggs remembers his subjective experiences but the rest of the world has been rebooted back to the beginning. Unlike Murray, though, Diggs didn’t seem overly concerned with the how or why behind the repetition. Granted, he had more immediate problems, like being framed for murder, but you’d think he’d take a moment or two to attempt to make sense of his situation. Maybe he did in the pilot; don’t know. And after reading that first interview above, it’s good to know that there is a reason behind it all, although I would’ve been just as willing to accept the premise sans an explanation.

Day Break isn’t bad, all things considered. Obviously it’s trying to cash in on the success of similar gimmick shows like 24 (and it’s not the first to do so, IIRC). It definitely demands that you pay attention for clues and such. I imagine the trickiest part will be to make each episode feel fresh. Even if the show succeeds, though, what will its future be once Lost returns to that time slot? (And why is Lost on hiatus anyway? Are they just not gonna air repeats?)

The show suffers from ADD-style editing, like many shows and films do these days (don’t get me started on that); Diggs is good in the role but I wouldn’t call him great – he still seems like he’s in an adjustment phase and doesn’t have the intensity and sheer presence that Kiefer Sutherland has on 24. And something about the sound seemed muted somehow (though it could’ve just been my TV). Regardless, I guess I’d still recommend it, though I’m unsure how this premise could be sustained past a single season.