Riann Steele
CBS

The NBC pilot ‘Debris’ has cast its female lead with Riann Steele.  She will star opposite Jonathan Tucker, who was announced as the male lead yesterday.  Tucker will portray CIA operative Bryan Beneventi, while Steele plays MI6’s Finola Jones.  These two investigators from different continents must work together to investigate the remains of a crashed alien spacecraft that is having a mysterious effect on the Earth’s population.  Jones is described as being “a classic rule follower,” which would seemingly imply that Beneventi is a rascally rule breaker.

‘Debris’ hails from Legendary Entertainment, and was created by J.H. Wyman, who wrote the screenplay for the pilot.  Wyman serves as executive producer via his Frequency Films along with Jason Hoffs.  Wyman acted as showrunner on ‘Fringe’ before creating FOX’s ‘Almost Human’.

Steele has recurred on ‘NCIS: New Orleans’ and ‘The Magicians’.  She has also appeared on ‘TURN: Washington’s Spies’, ‘The Blacklist’, and ‘Legacies’.  She appeared in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ in the role of Catherine Starr (the mother of Ava Starr a.k.a. Ghost).  Some may recognize her from the 2012 ‘Doctor Who’ episode “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” in which she played Queen Nefertiti.

 

RELATED:  NBC Orders Spaceship Pilot ‘Debris’ Starring Jonathan Tucker

 

So far, ‘Debris’ has just been ordered as a pilot, but of NBC execs like what they see, it could wind up on the fall schedule.

NBC is exploring several high-concept possibilities for the new season.  The network has also ordered ‘Echo’, from writer JJ Bailey and Davis Entertainment, about a group of investigators who travel back in time in the bodies of crime victims to uncover the truth about what happened to them; ‘La Brea’, from writer David Appelbaum, Keshet Studios, and Universal Television, about a mysterious sinkhole that appears in Los Angeles and separates a family, with half of them winding up in a “primeval world” where they must work with “a disparate group of strangers” in order to survive and hopefully return home; and ‘Langdon’ based on the books of Dan Brown, which acts as a sequel to ‘The DaVinci Code’ and ‘Angels & Demons’.

Check back to see if any of these gets picked up as ongoing series.

 

Source: Deadline