TNT hasn’t traditionally been a place that springs to mind when you think “science fiction,” and when it did, the associations were mostly negative — this is the network that brutalized J. Michael Straczynski’s short-lived Babylon 5 spin-off Crusade, if you recall. That changed beginning in 2011, when the explosively monikered cable net premiered Falling Skies, the Steven Spielberg-produced alien-invasion series that enters its fourth season this June. The men and women of the 2nd Mass. have been through a lot during their long guerilla struggle against the alien occupying forces of the Espheni Overlords. From the look of the latest trailer for season four, which you can watch above, things aren’t going to be getting any easier for Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) anytime soon.

As the headlines are still centered on the missing Malaysian plane, we here at GFR are just as interested in a troubled vehicle that admittedly has a lot less of an impact on real life. TNT’s post-apocalyptic drama The Last Ship is set for its disastrous course this summer, and the network is giving potential audiences a new look at the series that features editing as choppy as the waves the ship will be steered through. You want the virus? You can’t handle the virus!

With Falling Skies successful and headed into a fourth season TNT is looking to add more sci-fi to its roster. Enter The Last Ship, a new series from Transformers director Michael Bay and starring a lot of people, but most importantly starring Adam Baldwin.

Baldwin was Jayne on Firefly and he tends to make just about everything he shows up in, a little better. Everything except this trailer (via Cinema Blend), that is, since it only allows him on screen for about one-second before cutting away to some dramatic, viral stock footage. The trailer does, however do a pretty good job of outlining the show’s premise, and as premises go, it’s a pretty good one.

The words “from executive producer Michael Bay” would usually make me reflexively click away to something else, but the above trailer for TNT’s apocalyptic drama The Last Ship earns a second glance for a couple of reasons. For one, the concept could be a lot of fun. Based on the 1988 novel by William Brinkley, The Last Ship finds the crew of a Naval craft returning from operating under radio silence, only to discover that much of the world has been wiped out in the interim by an apocalyptic event. In the book, it was nuclear war, but for the show it’s been updated to a much more 21st century threat, a global pandemic. The crew of the ship must figure out what to do in a world where most of the planet’s population is dead, and governments are toppling left and right amidst the chaos.

Michael Bay’s TNT pilot The Last Ship just earned a blip on my radar. Adam Baldwin, veteran of such fan-favorite series as Firefly and Chuck has signed on for the series, his first pilot since his long run on NBC’s Chuck. Baldwin will play Mike Slattery, the second in command of the USS Nathan James, a naval destroyer facing a harsh reality after a global pandemic wipes out much of the world’s population.

First announced back in July, The Last Ship is being executive produced by Michael Bay, with Jonathan Mostow set to direct the pilot (not unfamiliar territory for him, since he also helmed the sub flick U-571 back in 2000). The Last Ship is based on the 1989 novel by William Brinkley. In the original book the core catastrophe was a global nuclear war, but it’s been updated to the far more trendy pandemic for the TV iteration.

Deadline has a few minor details about the character of Slattery, who will be second in command under Captain Tom Chandler (Eric Dane). They continue: “He’s a fair man who cares deeply for his family. He and Tom clash at times over the best course of action.”

Michael Bay has devoted several years to spinning gripping tales of indistinguishable giant robots punching each other and somehow resisting the urge to murder Shia LeBeaouf and Megan Fox. That sort of thing takes a toll on a fella. It’s understandable that Bay would want to take a vacation into the world of television. And if that vacation could involve a project that has plenty of potential for flag-draped slow-motion patrio-porn and explosions, so much the better. Thankfully, he found just such a project with The Last Ship, which he’s developing for TNT. Now a few new details have leaked to give us some hints of what to expect from The Last Ship.

The Last Ship is based on a 1989 novel of the same name by William Brinkley (no, not the Quaker Oats/diabetes/Cocoon guy, that was Wilford Brimley). It’s about a U.S. Naval vessel that survives a global catastrophe is faced with figuring out what to do about that whole apocalypse thing. Bay is producing the series, with Jonathan Mostow (he of Terminator Salvation) in the director’s seat.