When you go to San Diego Comic Con, you see a lot of genre shows that have a mystery at their core. They tend to all blend together after four days of screening shows that their producers hope will catch on. However, at this year’s convention, one series stood out: Emergence
Sure, Emergence has a mystery that you want to learn about. But what makes the show different in the family dynamic that is at the heart of it. I don’t just mean that it features a family, but that you can tell that just as much attention was put into crafting an interesting family as it was in to creating an engaging mystery.
Emergence is about a police chief who takes in a young girl she discovers at the site of a mysterious plane crash. The child seemingly has no memories of the incident, but things get even weirder when the plane mysteriously disappears. We discover that there is more to the girl than meets the eye and that there are a group of mysterious people going to great lengths to get the girl into their grasp.
Of course, that is just about the mystery and, as I said, family dynamic really sets the show apart. Allison Tolman (Downward Dog) plays the recently divorced mom who lives with her dad (Clancy Brown) and her daughter (Ashley Aufderheide). Donald Faison (Scrubs) plays the ex-husband who is able to convey what brought the couple together and what drove them apart, all at once. You don’t often see a nuanced divorced family on TV and it adds an engaging wrinkle to the storytelling.
The cast and crew have often reference the Amblin films of the 80s as an inspiration. You get echos of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. In many ways, Emergence is a throwback to the family stories of the 80s while bringing in the lessons television has learned regarding serialized storytelling in more recent decades. Producers Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters (Agent Carter) have seemingly stuck a great balance between two classic forms that in its own way has brought us something old yet new. Without a doubt, Emergence is my favorite new show of the fall season.
With all the attention seemingly placed on a plethora of streaming services, Emergence proves that there is still great storytelling that is worth watching on broadcast TV.
Emergence debuts September 24th at 10/9c and will then be available on demand and through Hulu.