Zero day - drama series review

 Ever since i saw "The Intern" i've been smitten by Robert De Niro. Agreed that he had done several magnificent movies prior, but his performance in Intern made not just his character but the entire movie impressive. When i saw his name being mentioned in this drama series, that was the first cue to mark it on the watchlist. The initial few minutes into the series, chaos reign supreme, with America being under attack for yet another time in the web series world, this time with all their cyber systems, from phone to plane, getting hacked simultaneously. With no group claiming responsibility for the attack which lasted just a couple of minutes yet resulted in several train/plane crashes and loss of thousands of lives, entire country is panic stricken, with people on the verge of mass hysteria. If we take a step back and try to imagine the situation, it may not make that much of a sense in a country like India, even though with increased technological dependency we may nearly be there, but in a country like US, without electricity you can barely survive unless you are prepared for such cataclysmic situations. And in such a highly integrated grid like infra setup, when the systems are hacked, it is as good as an enemy invasion. It may not be to the extent as how it is shown on TV but the threat and its impact could very well be somewhere closer to fiction, closer than we actually care about! 

The other interesting aspects about the series being the characterizations mimicking current day world, with the ex-president Niro, often suspectable to memory impediments, his successor being a lady of color. The speaker being someone more to the right than the incumbent POTUS and the fellow billionaire who pushes the Zero day team towards results favoring his own goals, it is as if, the makers wanted to wave a red rag of the darkest color at the already belligerent and bellicose Trump. The measures taken to counter the Zero day threat makes one shudder at the ease with which governments trample over the freedom of people and the effects of such actions are really scary to even think about leave alone imagine!! An agency is formed with unprecedented power to investigate and cull out the perpetrators and true to their strength they go to all levels possible and eventually find out the real culprit who was right under their very noses. It ends in the most cinematic climax possible which would've never ever happened in real life, with Niro coming out sanctimonious despite all his misgivings as the head of the task force.

More than the thrill factors, the fear of such an attack happening, which is becoming more and more imminent than imaginary in real time, and the extremes to which politicians are pushed for an action makes it all the scarier! 1984 novel feels like young adult fiction when compared to these troubling times!