It looks like we might have a new X-Files-type series for the 21st century to capture our imaginations. Variety is reporting that NBC has ordered the drama pilot called Debris for the 2020-2021 season. This new series follows two agents from two different continents, and two different mindsets. They must work together to investigate when wreckage from a destroyed alien spacecraft begins to have mysterious effects on humankind.
The series is coming to us from writer and executive producer Joel Wyman and executive producer Jason Hoffs. Legendary Television will produce. Many Sci-fi fans will know Joel Wyman from his work on shows such as Fringe and Almost Human.
New Mexico.gov
Supposed UFO crashes and alien debris have fascinated us all since a little incident in Roswell, New Mexico back in 1947 that you might have heard about. The media quickly debunked that incident as a hoax. However, decades later people involved in the finding of supposed alien debris there came forward to tell their story. More and more people from the small military town began to tell of their personal experiences, and the Roswell incident became an urban legend. Add to that the huge rash of UFO sightings in the 1950s and onward; many of us became convinced that the government was hiding something of extraordinary significance from the public.
Twentieth Century Fox
This all kicked into high gear in the late ’70s, with the arrival of television shows like In Search Of, a documentary series hosted by Leonard Nimoy about unexplained phenomena, and movies like Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For many years, people truly believed that the meeting between an alien mothership and the United States government was based on true events. The show Unsolved Mysteries also added to the fervor. Believing in UFOs and crashed alien spacecraft went from being unbelievable just a few years earlier, to something many people just accepted as fact.
With the advent of these films and TV shows, people around the world just began to accept the idea that aliens were indeed visiting us. And that is was very likely that the governments of the world probably knew all about it and were covering it up. This narrative led to the enormous success of TV series like the X-Files and Roswell in the ’90s, and continues on to this day with shows like History Channel’s Project Blue Book and Roswell, New Mexico.
It is quite possible that Debris will continue our collective cultural fascination with UFOs and mysterious alien findings. Certainly there hasn’t been something of this nature on network TV for a long time, and the time is right for it. Whether or not Debris is based on real-life accounts or is entirely fictional remains to be seen. But there are certainly plenty of true stories from rank and file civilians to former government officials about their experiences with finding supposed alien technology worthy of many season of television.
Editor’s Note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks
Featured Image: Sony Pictures
