This is not as easy as it sounds on SF shows. Anything approaching the Earth at a certain velocity will almost always whip around it and head off into space at almost the same velocity. Entering an orbit from space requires a serious velocity change to be applied to the object. In space vehicles, this is usually a major rocket boost.

Although I'm fuzzy on orbital mechanics, there are certain specific trajectories that could alter the velocity of the object to slow it down--the reverse of the "flyby boosts" we use on space probes. Even then the most likely result would be for the object to move away into deep space again, just a bit more slowly.

There are probably trajectories where an object that happened--by great chance--to be approaching at only a little greater speed than escape velocity, might get slowed (again by chance) into a very long elliptical orbit instead of a flyby, but that would be very rare. Having that orbit modify into a lower orbit would be even more unlikely.

On the other hand it's a lot less difficult modifying the orbit of an object (due to some random flyby or gravitational hiccup somewhere in the solar system) so it can collide with the Earth at high speed. So we need to keep our eyes open.