Dave Cunningham
It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! Wait… it’s…it’s a UFO! I have absolutely no idea how UFOs would look like a bird, but alas, it makes for a good intro. You might want to check outside your windows for anomalies, though, as there’s something brand new making its entrance: Debris. Though it isn’t particularly showing on your favorite streaming platform, the upcoming UFO mystery series will be arriving on NBC. The old school can keep up too, kid.
Hailing from Fringe and Almost Human‘s very own Joel Howard “J.H.” Wyman, the series tells the story of Bryan Beneventi (Jonathan Tucker) and Finola Jones (Riann Steele) as two international agents with an individually diverse set of skills and backgrounds tasked to track down the mysterious wreckage of what seems to be an alien aircraft––a UFO, in layman’s terms––that gives the laws of our reality a run for its money.
“There’s a lot of people out there that do the ‘Little Green Men’ thing better than me,” Wyman explained in January. “I’m not that guy. I’m more [interested in] human interactions … What does it look like when there are questions that are asked that really shine a light on the human condition? And I just always find that fascinating … When the visitors come down that sort of highway and make themselves known or whatever it is, I think that we’re going to learn more about ourselves than the aliens or the visitors. And that really interests me. Those are the things that I’ve always loved. I think it just doesn’t really keep my imagination sort of shackled. It sort of lets it go.“
On one hand, the series is overseen by Wyman’s company Frequency Films alongside Legendary Television and Universal Television. On the other hand, Debris is produced by Wyman, Jason Hoffs, Jeff Vlaming, and Samantha Corbin-Miller. First announced in early 2020, the series was gladly picked up for one full season during the summer.
“There is the ‘story of the week’ and the ‘debris of the week,’” Steele said at the TCA panel. “But what is so amazing about these scripts and about Joel’s writing is that there is a realism alongside that. You’re meeting two characters who are very flawed and are very broken, and we get to also see, along the season, them kind of understand each other through the debris.”
“Riann is so darn dynamic on this show, and I’m there to support her,” added Tucker. “You’re going to enjoy the two different kinds of continental banter that we have, because we certainly are having a good time with that on set.“
If you’re interested, and I’m sure you are, here’s the full synopsis per NBC:
“When mysterious wreckage starts falling from the sky, a secretive international agency is tasked with figuring out what it is, where it came from, and most importantly… what it can do. British agent Finola Jones and American agent Bryan Beneventi are partners who have very different styles — she’s warm, intuitive and detail-oriented, and he’s charming, confident and guarded. But they have no choice but to trust each other as they track down the debris scattered across the Western Hemisphere. Each fragment has unpredictable, powerful and sometimes dangerous effects on the everyday people who find it. Every discovery is also a race against time, because shadowy outside forces seek these objects for nefarious purposes.”
There are seriously tons more potential for sci-fi in television, not just on streaming platforms. The genre is so diverse and interesting enough for people to actually check it out. Plus this one’s about UFOs! How is that not a must-watch?
The new NBC series lands on the 1st of March, 2021, at 10 p.m. ET.
