The Sky Is Falling! A Spaceship Wreck Wreaks Havoc on Humans in NBC’s ‘Debris’

Sergei Bachlakov/NBC

We are not alone, and the proof is scattered all over the Western Hemisphere.

In the sci-fi thriller Debris (NBC Mondays at 10pm ET/PT beginning March 1), bits and pieces of wreckage from an alien spacecraft have fallen to Earth. But these fragments aren’t just space junk, and you definitely don’t want them for souvenirs. Even the smallest “nacho” shard has physics-defying powers and unpredictable effects on anyone making contact with it.

The U.S. and the U.K. have joined forces in a coalition called ORBITAL to collect the debris, conduct scientific research on it, investigate human interactions with it and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The CIA’s Bryan Beneventi (Jonathan Tucker) and MI6’s Finola Jones (Riann Steele) are teammates with two vastly different approaches to their work.

“You’re meeting two characters who are very flawed and are very broken when you meet them,” Steele says. “We get to also see, along the season, them kind of understand each other through the debris.”

Jones’ recently deceased father was the astrophysicist who founded ORBITAL, and she feels a sense of duty to carry on his work. “I believe this technology, if understood properly, can end famine, cure sickness,” Jones says in the Debris pilot. “I think what we’re doing here will absolutely change the course of humanity.”

Beneventi, who has recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, is more concerned about preventing smugglers from selling debris to adversarial nations or terrorist groups. “My character is going through a rather profound PTSD ride and trying to compartmentalize that, and then also use it to connect to people and to the experiences that he’s having here,” Tucker says.

Debris is created by Fringe writer and executive producer J.H. Wyman, and it will appeal to fans of that series and The X-Files.