The biggest talking point about Netflix’s Zero Day has been that it is Rober DeNiro’s first television series. So, let’s get this out of the way immediately. He’s fine. His character, former President George Mullen, is an insular man. As a result, he’s largely stoic. He’s a politician with a well-honed instinct for keeping himself calm and only raising his voice ever so slightly to convey a sort of “I’m not mad at you, but I sure am disappointed” disposition. De Niro embodies that kind of lifelong commitment to never showing too much well.

However, Mullen is also a man who is still mourning the death of his son, an event at least partially credited for his not seeking re-election 12 years earlier. He’s estranged from his daughter Alexandra Mullen (Lizzy Caplan), a Congresswoman whose career seems to exist in part to repudiate his governance. And, as Zero Day ramps up, he also appears to be increasingly experiencing losses of memory, auditory hallucinations (hope viewers like “Who Killed Bambi?” by the Sex Pistols because they’ll be hearing it a lot), and confusion. The show and the character could use more of De Niro’s capacity for fury to make those aspects feel real and relevant.

Real and relevant is what Zero Day clearly wants, even as it rarely achieves it. The series concerns the titular day—actually only a minute—when the United States experienced a massive and devastating hack. In that minute, many died. More devastating, though, is the panic which follows. It necessitates the current Commander-in-Chief, President Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett), tap Mullen to head the government’s investigation. Unfortunately, Mullen’s inclusion brings a host of baggage. That includes his shady bodyman Roger Carlson (Jesse Plemons), his former chief of staff/mistress Valerie Whitesell (Connie Britton), and his likely soon-to-be nominated as a Justice wife Sheila Mullen (Joan Allen). Mullen also must contend with being “independent journalist” Evan Green’s (Dan Stevens) apparent least favorite politician.

Mullen’s acceptance of the position also places him in the line of long brewing conflicts. Mitchell’s likely opponent in the next Presidential election, Speaker of the House Richard Dreyer (Matthew Modine), felt he should’ve led the investigation. He passive-aggressively takes his wound to the mics. There he complains about ever move Mullen and company make. There’s also shady businessmen, represented most prominently by Robert Lyndon (Clark Gregg, underused), and a tech “genius” anxious to play hero, Monica Kidder (Gaby Hoffmann, CRIMINALLY underused). Finally, the committee’s actions have the CIA, led by Director Lasch (Bill Camp), feeling anxious.

With these many competing interests and shaky alliances, audiences might expect plenty of betrayals and strange bedfellows. They’d be right. They might also think all these wheelings and dealings make Zero Day feel exciting. On that assumption, they’d be wrong.

Part of the issue is despite often hearing about the cost, the series never truly makes the audience feel it. There is a scattering of angry mobs throughout the six episodes, but the people making them up are faceless. All the characters of prominence do not suffer because of the Zero Day hack. We hear about runs at the bank, food shortages, and mounting casualties, but we see almost no one with more than four lines experience such consequences. As a result, America’s suffering is a distant hypothetical, a thing viewers must take as true without any means of connecting with those in pain.

The other problem is that Zero Day often feels like it is rushing to get its most interesting characters and actors off the board. As noted above, Gregg and Hoffman have what sound like important roles but end up with almost no screen time. They get just enough to make one feel like, “Oh, this is a character I want to watch!” before they disappear for vast stretches of time. Camp, Plemons, and Caplan suffer similar fates despite more lines.

The biggest victim of this, however, is Stevens. He plays Green as an Alex Jones-type with more charisma and intelligence. His broadcasts are a mix of deep-voiced old-school anchor seriousness, childish playground taunting, and every conspiracy is valid rabblerousing. He’s even more intriguing when not in front of the camera. At home, he comes across as a present family man and, when facing Mullen in person, a devil-may-care shit-stirrer. Then, the show loses interest in him. Zero Day desperately misses his anarchic energy in the second half. We know De Niro is the lead, but with nearly 6 hours of storytelling, it’s frustrating the show can’t find more room for some of its most intriguing characters.

The writing keeps individual characters’ political leanings vague enough that even while Green rages against Mullen and props up various conspiracies, it is unclear whether he is doing it from the right or left. The one explicitly political group is a left-wing hacking collective that may or may not be responsible for Zero Day. Otherwise, opposition to what it calls extremism predominantly animates the show. Unfortunately, in its attempts to both sides that, it ends up pulling an Atlantic and placing “concerned about using proper pronouns” on the same level as “belonging to a hate group”. This is not an interpretation, either. That comparison is explicitly made by one character. Those frustrated by Civil War’s lack of politics last year will likely be livid about Zero Day’s muddled false equivalences.

By the time the series arrives at its climactic but underwhelming final speech scene—a path that takes viewers through two other “this feels like the end” moments—the problem is clear. Over and over, Zero Day makes the wrong choice. Boilerplate both side-ism instead of naming the real problem. Procedure over characterization. It insists on devastation rather than making it feel real to the audience.

Zero Day is hacking the planet now on Netflix.

Zero Day Trailer: