The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current, February 27, 2021, Weekend Edition, Page 13, Image 13

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    2 l February
28 - March 6, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
‘Debris’ signals more tough times
for the world in NBC sci-fi series
BY JAY BOBBIN
The next time you see something fall from the sky, it
may mean more than you think. And not in a good way.
That’s how “Fringe” and “Almost Human” veteran J.H.
Wyman is positioning it, anyway. He’s now the creator
and executive producer of “Debris,” an NBC sci-fi series
that premieres Monday, March 1, making fallen pieces
of an alien spaceship threats to physics ... thus causing
people to start falling, too. Two dissimilar agents, played
by Jonathan Tucker (“Westworld,” “City on a Hill”)
and Riann Steele (“The Magicians,” “Lovesick”), are
dispatched to collaborate and gather the debris – though
how it will be handled afterward, and to what end, is
figuratively up in the air. Two-time Tony Award winner
Norbert Leo Butz also stars.
“We’re going to put something out there that’s going
to make a difference to people and (make them) say,
‘There’s something different about the show,’ ” Wyman
maintains. “It speaks to things that I think aren’t really out
there right now. There’s a hope and a concept that maybe
there’s something out there that we don’t know, and that is
something that I think is intriguing enough. And all I can
ask for is people to sample it and kind of understand it.”
Actor Tucker explains that “week to week, a new piece
of debris is discovered. And it allows us to discover the
Riann Steele and Jonathan
Tucker star in “Debris,”
premiering Monday on NBC.
unique capabilities that this debris has to offer, how it
affects people, how it affects the world, and ultimately
how it affects (the characters) and their own relationship.
It’s fun for us as actors, for sure, but I think it will be
fun for audiences to see ... and it speaks to the kind of
cablelevel scifi that we’ve become accustomed to. You can
have a case of the week, but you can also have meaningful
character development and mythological rollout over the
course of this first season, at least.”
Fellow “Debris” star Steele adds that “there is a realism
alongside” the fantasy of the show: “You’re meeting two
characters who are very flawed and very broken, and we
get to see them along the season kind of understand each
other through the debris.”
However “Debris” is received generally, Wyman believes
it is meeting his own criteria for what he wanted to do
with it. “To me, the best sci-fi is more about the human
condition that it talks about,” he reasons. “There’s a lot of
people out there that do the ‘little green men’ thing better
than me. I’m more (about), with the sci-fi genre, what
does it look like when there are questions asked that really
shine a light on the human condition? I just always find
that fascinating.”
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