IR TV Review: DEBRIS (“Pilot”) [NBC]
The idea of mystery and how to build a sense of wonder comes from the idea of creating some dynamic that might be a little of what is remembered and a bit of what is gained in originality. With shows like "Emergence" & "Manifest" and even "Lost" and "The X-Files", the story has to come out of the guise of knowing and yet not knowing. The reason why anthology series are doing so well is because it is about subverting expectations about what we know. The UFO phenomena is still ripe for the picking especially with the new found release of information from DIA but also a healthy amount of mythology on cable channels. But what "Debris" does in its "Pilot" is try to take it back to a slight sense of unease but one that can BE worked through by logic and circumstance. The team here is an interesting one backed by a female agent from MI6 and a CIA operative that also served on the ground in Afghanistan. Like "Sicario", it is about placing characters outside their comfort zone. "Debris", in many ways, is simply the plot ploy for a bigger idea. And with modern CG animation (as "Lois & Superman" showed last week), some of the effects on television can rival films in many ways.
The inventiveness works quite well between an investigation in a hotel to the farm fields of the Midwest. The interesting aspect is that the show might work on the aspect of a episodic of the week which is a nice change from the inherent serialized storytelling (although "The Blacklist" also seems to have found a balance). The pairing of Jonathan Tucker as Vryan Benventi and Riann Steele as Finola Jones works well because they have everything to prove, no reason to trust each other and the balance of lives in their hand. "Debris" doesn't play it overwrought. When it is about to go into melodrama at one point, it goes silent. But the eeriness that creator Brad Anderson brings to the series recalls some of his earlier work in "Session 9" but within a broadcast context. The good thing is that the series is not too extreme yet not overly fine lined either and yet it runs smoothly. Again it depends if the notion of "Debris" functions on multiple storylines and can subject itself to episodics without failing under its own weight. With certain scenes aptly balancing drama and sci-fi. specially a scene midway through the episode in a field, "Debris" has the potential. B
By Tim Wassberg
