Tonight, ABC launches a brand new mystery with sci-fi drama, Emergence.
The show stars Allison Tolman as a small-town sheriff who finds a strange little girl (Alexa Skye Swinton) at the site of a plane crash and takes her in, and from there, the questions start. Why doesn’t she have a scratch on her? Why has she lost her memory? Where did she come from? Why are people after her? Why are people pretending to be her parents?
A new featurette, exclusive to E! News, dives a little bit deeper into what viewers might be able to expect from the show which isn’t solely about the mystery. It’s also about Jo (Tollman) and her family, including ex husband Alex (Donald Faison) dealing with the choice she made to disregard protocol and take in this little girl, who is now adapting to this new family.
“I like these characters learning about each other and taking care of each other,” EP Michele Fazekas says in the clip, and Tara Butters adds that she finds it really fun and interesting “to see how they are reacting, versus just investigate, investigate, investigate.”
The major mystery of the show also isn’t about who the little girl is.
“This little girl, you’re trying to figure out who she is, and you’ll find out, and then it goes from there,” explains Robert Bailey Jr., who plays officer Chris Minetto.
“It moves quickly, and it doesn’t draw things out,” Tolman says.
At the TV Critics Association summer press tour, Tolman told E! News that this show absolutely knows the answers to the questions it’s asking.
“It’s a mystery show, but we will not tease you and then not give you results. You will very quickly begin to have answers, which will only generate more questions, because it’s not the type of show that asks questions and doesn’t know what the answers are or doesn’t have a plan for when they’re going to be revealed to you,” she says. “They have a plan, they know exactly where things are going, and I think that fans will be rewarded in that way.”
Ashley Aufderheide, Clancy Brown, Oain Yeoman, Zabryna Guevara, and Terry O’Quinn also star.
Emergence premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC.