Day 1...Day 2...etc.. - Day Break (2006) Discussion

[–] inthepalemoonlight 16 years ago

The first two episodes were shown as a tow hour premier.

Also each episode TPTB wanted the audience to know how many days had passed in each episode. Seeing it for the second time I can see how it works better that way rather than having people se3 the words "Day 41" in episode six. Its a better story telling technique.

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[–] TStormJack 16 years ago

It confused the hell out of me. They switched between Day 2 and 3 about five times. And it wasn't a straight line because on the first Day 3, Chad tells him the book is on his front seat, then he goes and gets the book on Day 2 AND Day 3.

Besides, aren't we seeing the exact same day over and over? Why would any days pass?

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[–] TesubCalle 16 years ago

OK...this confused me in the beginning, as well.

I'll see if I can clarify.

Episode 1: DAY 1 - Hopper gets up, goes to his apartment, gets arrested, blah blah blah. Gets busted out of jail by Dettweiler's goons. Gets injected; sedative knocks him out...he's off to dreamland.

DAY 2 - Hopper gets up...sees Rita alive...whoa...you ever have a deja vu?

See, depending on the episode, he repeats the day any number of times. Sometimes, he repeats it 4 times. 5 times. 16 bloody times the 'day' he takes her down to Mexico, or wherever it is they go to the beach. In that episode, we'd see 'DAY 4'....'Day 5'....'DAY 6'....'Day 7'...etc., etc.,

But the following week with the new episode, we'd still see another 'DAY 1', just so we'd know how many times he'd been around on the hamster wheel for the particular ep we were watching.

good t'ing no cheap, and cheap t'ing no good

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[–] TStormJack 16 years ago

But I've seen Day 2 and Day 3 in at least 6 episodes... and he's waking up or already up when Rita gets up many times. So if he's repeated the day twice as Day 3 begins, why would we see it again?

I dunno, I'm just gonna watch the rest of the episodes and ignore the day number.

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[–] TesubCalle 16 years ago

Right..that means that's the second and third time he's woken up for that particular episode. Something different happens in those repeated 'Days', of course, depending on what Hopper does. The 'day' he blows off everything and goes to the beach with Rita, he does it over a dozen times. Day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10....etc...

But by the next episode, (and after he admits to her "the beach sucks" and she feels alienated from him), we're back to having 'Day 1', 'Day 2', etc., where he regains her trust when she realises he really does love her and is doing everything he can to protect her.

But I wouldn't let it bother you too much if you don't quite 'get' why we see the days being marked as they are.

good t'ing no cheap, and cheap t'ing no good

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[–] KaptainKaaaveman 16 years ago

That's right TesubCalle.

Here's another way of putting it:

Eash time Hopper repeats a day he's learnt something new, so does something different right? Right.
So, instead of showing us the whole process each time, they cut to the bit that's changed.

A really good example is when he's trying to get into Pelican Bay in ep 10. The first time around we see Rite drive Hopper to the airport, the Hopper on the plane, then waiting in the office, and finally meeting the Warden. After that first attempt all we see is him on the plane, then cut straight to the Warden's office, where he uses a different reason each time.
It's the 'Day 1' 'Day 2'... etc... captions that indicate that each attempt with the Warden is on a new day for Hopper.

You could number all the days consecutively over the series and go up to 50 or 60 or whatever, but they really only help us if they show us how many times Hopper had to repeat the day in that SPECIFIC episode - ie. how long it took him to learn or acheive what he did in that specific episode.

inthepalemoonlight put it best. If you didn't have the captions, it wouldn't always be clear that it was the next day, and it would be quite easy to lose track of the Hopper's progress or the consequences of his actions.

"lesbians, werewolves, and Ellen Page. Oh my!"

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[–] meira-hand 10 years ago

In each episode, as is clear from its name, he trying some other way out of his predicament ("What if ...."). Each such attempt is refined over several days within this episode. I think they should have used a nested number for the days to make it clear that the numbers restart each episode, e.g. day 3.4 for 4th day in the "What If He Lets Her Go" episode.

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[–] EnglishSummer 14 years ago

explanation - Same day but different things happen

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[–] scarletminded 13 years ago

I wish they would have numbers the days in total...like 1,2,3,4, 5, until the last day, which would have been more than a month later, like in the 30's. Day 30. Numbering them show to show was confusing to me, for at first, I thought when they said "Day 2" and it was past that, it was supposed to be a flashback until Brett did something beyond Day Two, of course.

I know why it was known to keep first time viewers in the loop. Ha Ha.
But someone watching the whole series on DVD might be confused and thrown for a loop.

Puntastic.

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[–] dcobbimdb 13 years ago

I haven't seen this show since it originally aired, some 5 years ago, but I loved it. Totally my kind of show.

So for those still confused let me try to explain it a different way. As others have already mentioned though each of the 13 episode has any number of days in it. It's been years so I don't remember it that well, but in each episode they tally the number of days or number of times he's repeated the same day. So as another poster mentioned the time he takes her to the beach for a number of days, each morning he wakes up, it starts the same in their apartment and they go to the beach, it's repetitive to him, but new for everyone else like it's the first time it's happened. After a while though they obviously don't replay the same morning clip so the episode can progress, but you just have to assume he carefully did the same thing and convinced her to go to the beach to escape the otherwise hectic day of running from the bad guys.

So... Every day is the same day for everyone else in the world in terms of actions and events, except for him and chicken man and their growing knowledge of things to come in that day, if that makes sense. It's exactly like Groundhog day, except he can be hurt / killed, and even know he repeats the same day, his body ages as if it's multiple days, which is why he heals from his gunshot, unlike groundhog day. And because it's unlike groundhog day in that respect (meaning he physically ages, can be hurt, can heal, etc...) they keep track of the number of days that have elapsed.

Now the other interesting thing with this show is even know the exact same day repeats, and obviously events change as he alters things, subconscious or behavioral things get through to the next repeated day, so its as if he's leaving an imprint that will make a mark which can carry through to the next repeated day. Again it's been years but I believe it was when he took his girlfriend to the beach, then got bored of it after a while and it left a bad omen or mark on his girlfriend, and as a result she lost faith or trust for him or something like that, now to her it's just been one day total, but to him many of the same days. Yet due to his actions or negative imprints he was drilling in towards the end, she has this foreboding feeling about him until he reels her back in. Again each day the same to her, but almost as if she woke up pissed at him as if she had a bad dream or simply a bad guy feeling about him, which he caused by his actions and if I recall he kind of picks up on this and figures this out if I'm not mistaken, sorry for going off on a tangent...

I'm going to find this series err season and watch it again as I remembered really liking it. I hope this helps others understand the day numbering thing. It's just to mainly give you the viewer a chronological totality for how many times he's repeated the day. So i guess if you took notes at and tallied up the number of times he's repeated each day, every episode, you'd have the total number of days he's been stuck in this loop.

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[–] bwgood77 10 years ago

Bumping this because it confused me the first time about a year ago and again, but makes sense with this thread.

I'm gonna need a hacksaw

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[–] Bob_Brooker 8 years ago

What sense? I haven't seen anybody yet come up with an explanation how the random day numbering made any sense. I gave up myself half-way through the season.

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[–] bwgood77 8 years ago

Well now that it's been about 17 months since I made that post, it's not real fresh in my head.

In the future, I'll tell my grandkids that I am older than the internet, and blow their minds

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