Daybreak

Daybreak drops viewers into Glendale, California, six weeks after a nuclear-tinged apocalypse has wiped out everyone over the age of eighteen. The adults did not simply die, though. They mutated into shambling, half-formed creatures called Ghoulies who repeat the last anxious thought they had as living people, leaving the surviving teenagers to rebuild society from the ruins of their high school world. The result is a suburban wasteland that plays like Mad Max crossed with a John Hughes movie, where the social hierarchy of homeroom has hardened into warring tribes that roam strip malls and cul-de-sacs.

At the center is Josh Wheeler, a relatively ordinary new kid who has only one goal in this lawless playground: find Sam Dean, the girlfriend who vanished when the bombs fell. His quest pulls him across territory claimed by jocks, cheerleaders, gamers and other cliques, and forces him into an unlikely crew that includes a fearless tween pyromaniac and a soul-searching former bully. The show is relentlessly self-aware, breaking the fourth wall, freezing the action for flashbacks, and handing the narration off to different characters so the same events can be retold from wildly different points of view.

Underneath the genre jokes and pop-culture riffs, Daybreak is really about the messy business of figuring out who you are when none of the old rules apply. Friendship, loyalty, first love and the difference between the labels people are given and the people they actually want to become all drive the season. Netflix released all ten episodes in October 2019 and cancelled the series shortly after, leaving its cliffhanger unresolved but its cult reputation as a bright, bloody, big-hearted teen comedy firmly intact.