PAGE 2 • TV
THE BULLETIN • FEBRUARY 25 - MARCH 3, 2021
‘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.”
Riann Steele and Jonathan
Tucker star in “Debris,”
premiering Monday on NBC.
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Actor Tucker explains that “week to
week, a new piece of debris is discovered.
And it allows us to discover the 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.”
Guide to the TV grids
‘G’: General audience
‘Y’: Young children
‘7’: Children over 7
‘14’: Children over 14
‘PG’: Parental guidance
‘M’: Mature audience only
N: Program is new
PA: Parental advisory
DVS: Descriptive video service
EI: Educational/instructional
D: Dialogue
L: Language
S: Sexual situations
V: Violence
Common symbols :
HD scheduling, please note:
’:I n stereo
Å: Closed captioning
iTV: Interactive TV program
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(HD) channels may vary by three hours
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up-to-the-minute TV programming,
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