Diggs plays Brett Hopper, a cop with a decent job, a beautiful girlfriend, and a partner being investigated by internal affairs. His life is serious, but not overly dramatic. Then, Hopper is framed for murder. His alibi -- that beautiful girlfriend, Rita (Moon Bloodgood) -- can't be found. And lots of other bad stuff comes to light, like the fact that his sister's husband is abusing her.
To top it all off, while asleep in his jail cell the night of his arrest, he's rousted out of bed by thugs, and dragged to a rock quarry, where a surly, mysterious man asks him in a creepily polite way to take the fall for the murder.
He's then shown a video of Rita being murdered. Hopper screams in anguish and the creepy man shoots him with a sedative, causing him to fall into an anguished sleep.
The next day he wakes up ... next to Rita. Of course, it's the same day he's just lived, except he knows what's going to happen. Of course, since this is only the first episode. he's unable to fix things.
During the two-hour pilot, Hopper lives his day three and a half times (at least by my count -- I may have missed a day). Each time, he tries to prove himself innocent, save his girl and fix all the other broken elements of this crazy day.
Bill Murray never had such problems.
Now, it's not that "Day Break" is bad. The pilot is actually fairly good, with some genuinely exciting actions scenes and a typically winsome performance by Diggs. The show is scattered with other fine actors as well, including Mitch Pileggi ("The X-Files"), Adam Baldwin ("Firefly") and Jonathan Banks ("Wiseguy"), who plays that creepy guy in the rock quarry.
And, yes, it's an intriguing idea to transplant the "Groundhog Day" concept to the world of the action serial.
But overall, it doesn't quite click. At the end of the day, "Day Break" seems less like a story about believable characters than a pitch meeting. The show's been described as "Groundhog Day" meets "24," and that's essentially what's up on screen. Just those bones. No flesh. No depth. Just a concept. That's why, no matter how complicated Hopper's situation is, it isn't compelling. There's not much there to make us care.
Plus, throughout both the pilot and the follow-up episode sent to critics, I couldn't stop asking myself questions. How long can this go on? How many scenarios can there be? Are audiences, who are drifiting away from serial dramas, going to have the patience to watch Hopper carefully dissect the same day over and over?
Any show that leaves me this distracted and questioning has problems. "Day Break" is taking over the time recently vacated by "Lost," a serialized drama which has dropped in viewership this season. "Lost" isn't the only show to suffer from audiences' dissatisfaction with serials. The CBS serial "Smith" got axed after a few episodes and others, like ABC's "The Nine," are struggling.
Serialized dramas can still be successful. The NBC sci-fi drama "Heroes," and the ABC telenovela "Ugly Betty" have done well. But both those shows aren't just concepts. They're more than just a pitch line, with interesting characters and ideas.
That's what "Day Break" would need to survive. And so far, it's lacking.
The two-hour "DayBreak" pilot airs 9 p.m. Wednesday on ABC.