Salvation

An MIT grad student and a tech billionaire deliver a chilling piece of news to a junior Pentagon official: an asteroid will strike Earth in about six months. Rather than dwelling on spectacle, the series follows the political, scientific, and personal fallout of that revelation. You watch officials, scientists, and private players scramble to design a deflection plan while managing public panic, media pressure, and hidden agendas. The plot focuses on tense negotiations, ethical trade-offs, and the characters' interpersonal strains as limited time forces urgent choices and shifting alliances, keeping the story anchored in human stakes more than nonstop destruction.

Created by Craig Shapiro, Elizabeth Kruger, and Matt JL Wheeler, Salvation premiered on CBS in 2017 and ran for two seasons before ending in 2018. The show stars Santiago Cabrera as Darius Tanz, Jennifer Finnigan as Grace Barrows, Charlie Rowe as Liam Cole, Jacqueline Byers as Jillian Hayes, and Ian Anthony Dale as Harris Anders, blending procedural TV rhythms with high-concept science fiction.

The series didn't win major industry awards during its run. While it attracted attention from genre viewers and some positive notices for performances, it wasn't prominent in awards coverage and remained more of a cult-favorite than a critical darling.

Salvation left a modest cultural footprint: it didn't spawn a widespread catchphrase, but it did prompt conversations about crisis management, the role of private tech firms in public safety, and how governments might handle existential risks. Fans compared it to other disaster and political dramas, and online communities debated the plausibility of its scientific and strategic choices, keeping interest alive after episodes aired.

Critical and audience response was mixed to positive, reflected in a user average of 6.562 out of 10 from 417 votes. Reviewers often praised its brisk pacing, topical premise, and key performances while noting uneven plotting and occasional lapses in character depth. Recurring themes include leadership under pressure, the ethics of secrecy and sacrifice, tensions between science and politics, and how personal motives shape public decisions.