As teasers go, streamers seem to be getting into shorter and shorter territory. A couple of weeks ago, Apple TV+ released a tiny snippet of The Studio to capitalise on the Golden Globes, and now Netflix has put out a small slice of Zero Day. It's an upcoming thriller that boasts the significant honour of offering up Robert De Niro's first-ever major TV role.
The entire thing is just over a minute long, once the credits at the beginning and end are accounted for, but it gives us a pretty good taste of the tone that the series will be aiming for when it arrives on 20 February, in a month's time. It's stressful, and tense, and it looks to be acknowledging that De Niro is no spring chicken at this stage.
The scene gives us a look at De Niro's ageing ex-president character as he quite desperately tries to open a safe in his office, in the dark and at night. We see him fail to get the combination right, before he starts clattering around looking for what presumably is a reminder of the number he should be using.
After dropping a framed photo of his younger self during what looks like service in the army, he finds the date written on that photo and finally remembers the sequence he should be going for. All the while, someone's hammering on the door to his study, and we're left to assume that he's probably trying to gain access to a gun to defend himself. From the previous trailer the show already had, we can guess this is probably the titular "Zero Day", when a major cyberattack has left a whole heap of people vulnerable.
We know from Netflix's descriptions of the series that it will involve De Niro's character getting roped back into politics when he's asked to investigate the cyber attack and figure out just what happened. That might not lead to simple answers, either, and it looks like potential corruption or deep state-esque shenanigans might be going on, if I'm reading things right.
All of which should make for an entertaining limited series, and the sort of interesting option that makes Netflix such a contender in the race to be the best streaming service. We'll see how it's received when it starts in February.
