Salvation

Pop quiz: You’ve just learned an asteroid will destroy the world in 180 days. How do you react?

If you’re anything like the characters in CBS’ new summer event series (as the PR people are billing these things these days), you react with mild brow-furrowing and maybe the desire to have some one-on-one meetings in the shadowy corners of an ambiguous government building. This isn’t to say Salvation, which premieres on July 12, is bad. The show is acted and paced well enough, and a cliff-hanger about the possibility of saving only a fortunate few may bring viewers back. But its overall impression is that it’s about 10 years out of step with our current entertainment culture.

In the pilot I screened for review, the reaction of the characters who know about Earth’s impending doom is bafflingly understated. We see officials and experts spring into action, but it’s all so cool and impersonal. The grad student who discovers the news has the most extreme response—he goes to a nightclub and drinks too much. But he still has a pretty good time.

What might I do? Fall to my knees and pray. Call my pastor. Gibber psalms hysterically to my husband on the phone. Or, if I’m not a believer? Throw up. Take a handful of anxiety pills. Certainly cry. The people populating Salvation don’t do any of these character-defining things. They do what we imagine the capable, amorphous “people in charge” would do. And so they seem as distant as the amorphous “people in charge” in our minds always have.

Edgy doesn’t have to mean portraying sex and violence. It can also mean digging deep into authentic humanity. Many cable channels and streaming services may include unnecessary sinful content, but they are creating shows that connect deeply with younger audiences thanks to the messy, painful, and often-hilarious truthfulness of their characters. All but the most loyal broadcast viewers are growing beyond the kind of generic, overly polished storytelling Salvation offers.