''Daybreak'' is an American

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; ast ...

comedy-drama television series created by

Brad Peyton Brad Peyton (born May 27, 1978) is a Canadian film director, writer, and producer, best known for directing the Dwayne Johnson star vehicles '' Journey 2: The Mysterious Island'' (2012), '' San Andreas'' (2015), and ''Rampage'' (2018) as well as ...

and

Aron Eli Coleite Aron Eli Coleite (sometimes credited Aron Coleite) is an American comic book writer, television writer and Television producer, producer best known for his work on the Netflix series ''Daybreak (2019 TV series), Daybreak'', the NBC series ''Heroe ...

, based on the comic series by

Brian Ralph Brian Ralph (born 1973) is an American alternative cartoonist. His illustrations have appeared in ''Wired'' and the ''New York Post''. His debut graphic novel, ''Cave-In'', was nominated for three Harvey Awards, one Eisner Award, and listed as one ...

. It premiered on October 24, 2019, on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

and stars

Colin Ford Colin Ford (born September 12, 1996) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Josh Wheeler in '' Daybreak'', Joe McAlister in '' Under the Dome'', the voice of Jake on ''Jake and the Never Land Pirates'', Mikey on '' Can You Teach My A ...

Alyvia Alyn Lind Alyvia Alyn Lind (born July 27, 2007) is an American actress. She is known for playing the roles of Faith Newman on the CBS daytime soap opera ''The Young and the Restless'' from 2011 to 2021, 9-year-old Dolly Parton in the made-for-televisio ...

Sophie Simnett Sophie Simnett (born 5 December 1997) is an English actress, known for her roles as Skye Hart on the Disney Channel musical series '' The Lodge'' and Samaira Dean on the Netflix drama series '' Daybreak''. Early life Simnett was born in Hammer ...

, Austin Crute,

Cody Kearsley Cody Kearsley is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Moose Mason in the The CW, CW series ''Riverdale (2017 TV series), Riverdale'' and Turbo Pokaski in the Netflix series ''Daybreak (2019 TV series), Daybreak''. Career Kearsley ...

, Jeanté Godlock, Gregory Kasyan,

Krysta Rodriguez Krysta Anne Rodriguez (born July 23, 1984) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Ana Vargas in the NBC series ''Smash'', Summer Henderson in the NBC series '' Trial & Error'', Maxine Griffin in the ABC series '' Q ...

, and

Matthew Broderick Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is an American actor. His roles include the Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of the title character in ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' (1986), the voice of adult Simba in Disney's ''The Lion King'' (1994), ...

. In December 2019, Netflix canceled the series after one season.

Synopsis

The series follows the story of 17-year-old Canadian high school outcast Josh Wheeler, who is searching for his missing British girlfriend Sam Dean in post-apocalyptic

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents ac ...

. He is joined by a ragtag group of misfits, including 10-year-old

pyromaniac Pyromania is an impulse control disorder in which individuals repeatedly fail to resist impulses to deliberately start fires, to relieve some tension or for instant gratification. The term ''pyromania'' comes from the Greek word (''pyr'', 'fi ...

Angelica and Josh's former high school bully Wesley, who is now a

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaig ...

would-be

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of History of Japan#Medieval Japan (1185–1573/1600), medieval and Edo period, early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retai ...

. Josh tries to survive among the hordes of Mad Max-style gangs (evil jocks, cheerleaders turned Amazonian warriors, etc), people who have turned into zombie-like creatures called Ghoulies, and the mysterious Baron Triumph. The leader of the jocks, Turbo, doesn't make things better; as his terrible leadership and sadism culls the remaining survivors.

Cast

Main

as Josh Wheeler, a recent transfer student searching for his girlfriend in the apocalypse. He is

Fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cent ...

aware, and not narrating out craziness. *

as Angelica Green, a 10-year-old

as Samaira "Sam" Dean, a popular student and Josh's girlfriend * Austin Crute as Wesley Fists, a self-styled

rōnin A ''rōnin'' ( ; ja, 浪人, , meaning 'drifter' or 'wanderer') was a samurai without a lord or master during the feudal period of Japan (1185–1868). A samurai became masterless upon the death of his master or after the loss of his master ...

seeking redemption for his past mistakes *

as Turbo "Bro Jock" Pokaski, former quarterback and the unhinged leader of the Jocks * Jeanté Godlock as Mona Lisa, a Jock and Turbo's second-in-command * Gregory Kasyan as Eli Cardashyan, a resilient and self-serving

Armenian American Armenian Americans ( hy, ամերիկահայեր, ''amerikahayer'') are citizens or residents of the United States who have total or partial Armenian ancestry. They form the second largest community of the Armenian diaspora after Armenians i ...

survivor who occupies the Glendale Mall *

as Ms. Crumble, Glendale High's former biology teacher *

as Michael Francis Xavier Burr, Glendale High's principal. It's unknown how accurate Josh's flashbacks are, but Burr appears to be "odd" as he goes in

nonsensical Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have use ...

ramblings before getting to the point.

Recurring

The Jocks

* Chester Rushing as Terrence "Terry" Markazian, captain of the golf team * Micah McNeil as Jerry * Alan Trong as Larry * Mickey Dolan as Gary Stern * Jon Levert as Barry * Luke Valen as #54

The Daybreakers

*A.J. Voliton as Fred *Abigail Townsend as Vivienne *

Chelsea Zhang Chelsea T. Zhang (born November 4, 1996) is an American actress. She portrayed Rose Wilson on the DC Universe / HBO Max superhero series '' Titans'' (2019) and had recurring roles on the Disney Channel comedy-drama '' Andi Mack'' (2017–2018) a ...

as Karen Jane "KJ", a

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...

and Josh's ally * Estrella Avila as Jessica Huntley * Kevin Bransford as Other Gay Josh * Jack Justice as Jew-Fro Simon * Bao Winn as Rocco

The Cheermazons

* Jade Payton as Demi Anderson, one of the three leaders of the Cheermazons * Sandra Mae Frank as Victoria, one of the three leaders of the Cheermazons * Emily Snell as Miryam, one of the three leaders of the Cheermazons * Charlotte Benesch as Camilla, a Brazilian

exchange student A student exchange program is a program in which students from a secondary school (high school) or university study abroad at one of their institution's partner institutions. A student exchange program may involve international travel, but d ...

* Barbie Robertson as Veronica, Victoria's closest friend and interpreter

Other survivors

Sammi Hanratty Samantha Hanratty (born September 20, 1995) is an American actress. Her first lead was in 2009, portraying Chrissa Maxwell in '' An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong''. In 2011, she played the role Whitney Brown in the film ''The Greening of ...

as Aria Killigan: the reclusive leader of the Gamers, and ally of KJ * Rob H. Roy as Jaden Hoyles * Erik Christensen as Jaden Thompson Magee * Gabriel Armijo as Jaden Unger * Austin Maas as Bro Jock * Zoe Biggers as Jaden Florentina * Andrew Fox as Owen 'Slowen' Krieger * Natalie Alyn Lind as Mavis * Mitchell Hoog as Nimrod * Meg Smith as Isis Goodman * Jordyn Aurora Aquino as a disciple of Kardashia

Episodes

Production

Development

Peyton started creating a series based on the graphic novel in 2012. He realised that the book had influences from

Ferris Bueller ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' is a 1986 American teen comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by John Hughes and co-produced by Tom Jacobson. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, and Alan Ruck with supporting roles by Jennifer Gre ...

. On July 26, 2018,

announced an order for the production of a ten-episode first season.

was set to serve as showrunner for the series. The series is created by

and Coleite who are credited as executive producers alongside Jeff Fierson. ASAP Entertainment will be involved in the production of the series. In September 2019, it was reported that the series was set to premiere on October 24, 2019. On December 16, 2019, Netflix canceled the series after one season.

Casting

In October 2018, it was announced that

would star in the series. In the same month, it was reported that

, Austin Crute, Gregory Kasyan,

, and Jeante Godlock joined the cast.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

for the first season took place on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from October 2018 to April 2019.

Release

On September 16, 2019, a teaser trailer for the series was released. On October 7, 2019, Netflix released the official trailer for the series.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

reported a 70% approval rating for the first season with an average rating of 7.0/10, based on 33 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Daybreak'' blend of soapy teen drama and post apocalyptic horror has some truly inspired moments, even if it feels like you've seen a few of them before." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, it has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * {{Netflix original ended series (2019–present) 2010s American black comedy television series 2010s American comedy-drama television series 2010s American drama television series 2010s American high school television series 2010s American teen drama television series 2019 American television series debuts 2019 American television series endings American teen comedy-drama web series Apocalyptic television series English-language Netflix original programming Post-apocalyptic television series Post-apocalyptic web series Serial drama television series Television shows adapted into comics Television shows based on comics Television series about teenagers Television shows filmed in New Mexico Television shows set in Los Angeles Television shows set in the United States