Daybreak

Our Review

A post-apocalyptic John Hughes movie as a series — gladiatorial high-school tribes ruling a burnt-out Los Angeles, adults zombified into Ghoulies, and a lonely narrator breaking the fourth wall constantly. Colin Ford’s Josh searches for his lost girlfriend Sam across a wasteland run by jocks, ’90s anime fans, and cheerleaders, with a samurai-sword-wielding twelve-year-old and a converted-football-player-mystic as his crew.

The style is relentless — fourth-wall breaks, fantasy sequences, Matthew Broderick playing the apocalypse’s saddest principal in flashbacks — and that energy carries the first half. But the plot runs out of map: the worldbuilding raises questions (who’s making the gas? where are the bodies?) the show has no intention of answering, and the love-triangle material sags. Canceled after one season on a cliffhanger, which is a shame — the cast (especially Alyvia Alyn Lind’s berserker Angelica and Austin Crute’s fabulous Wesley) deserved a second round.

Verdict: Watch it if you like your apocalypse with a side of breakfast club. A fun ten hours that doesn’t stick the landing.