Netflix's upcoming thriller series Zero Day has been drumming up a lot of anticipation in the last few weeks, despite still being a few weeks away from hitting the streamer. It's released a couple of teasers and a glimpse of its opening scene, but now we finally have a full-scale trailer to sink our teeth into.
It makes it clear that Zero Day is going hard on some extremely relevant themes in public discourse and politics right now, from cybercrime to presidential discretion and even cognitive decline, all of which makes it look all the more interesting ahead of its arrival on 20 February. With Robert De Niro starring in his first major TV role, it's building up a head of steam.
De Niro will play George Mullen, an ex-President brought back by the administration of the day to chair an investigation into the titular cyberattack, one that resulted in thousands of deaths after effectively bringing down the entire grid in the United States on one day. With the threat that it'll happen again at some point, he's mobilised to figure out what happened.
However, this trailer makes it clear that his popularity isn't exactly sky-high, and that he'll be given powers to arrest and detain people without charge that even he feels uncomfortable with. This looks like it'll lead to protest and even riots, and it all seems like a pretty close look at real-life American politics and its volatility right now.
It'll even go somewhere I didn't expect, since there are mentions of De Niro's character being potentially in the middle of some cognitive decline, which is seen as one of a few reasons why he might not be the best person to head up the investigation. Given both the new President and the last one to lead the US, that's a hugely relevant plot point.
So, one thing that I'll be keeping an eye on when Zero Day launches is whether it cuts through into popular discourse much at all. It's widely perceived that some people in the new administration are a little thin-skinned, so could its points about American politics hit a weak spot? Could that even put one of the biggest and best streaming services in the world in some hot water?
