Last week I went to Caltech in Pasadena, CA to see an advance screening of the premiere episode from the second season of Salvation, a terrific CBS series about what could happen if the world learned an extinction-event sized asteroid was on a collision course with Earth.
My friends Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro co-created the show, and have done a great job researching how governments, the public, and hacktivist groups might respond to such news. (For instance, one government might try to send up something that would cause the asteroid to change course just enough to make it crash into a spot on the other side of the planet in order to minimize the damage in their country. This could cause world powers to consider nuclear warfare to stop that from happening.)
After the screening of the episode, Liz, Craig, and Phil Plait ("The Bad Astronomer") went on stage for a panel discussion about the science of the show. You can check out clips from the panel above and below:
Creating realistic special effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYu-IQzvz8c
Origination of the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLq7UHoH4T4
Putting science front and center: https://youtu.be/k5O8zKzbQY4
And here's the promo for season 2: https://youtu.be/6lKZYG5IgKI
The premiere episode is re-airing tonight on CBS. You can also watch the full first episode from season 2 at CBS now. You can catch the first season on Amazon Prime Video.
