SDCC 2019: Emergence could be ABC’s Empire Strikes Back?

A new sci-fi drama thriller series is emerging on ABC, and if you ask one of the stars, Emergence could be the network's The Empire Strikes Back.

"It's a sci-fi show, so I don't want to compare it to anything, to be honest with you, but… if comparing it to something… I would say Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, mostly,” Donald Faison (who we’ve all known and loved since Clueless and Scrubs) tells SYFY WIRE during an interview at San Diego Comic-Con.

Ha! Donald wasn't being completely serious ... but he's now got your attention, no?

Faison plays Alex, the ex-husband of newly divorced police chief Jo Evans (Alison Tolman), who finds a strange little girl (Alexa Skye Swinton) at the site of an unexplained plane crash. She decides to take the girl in and protect her from anyone chasing her down.

There are no Stormtroopers to be seen, and no one is frozen in Carbonite, but it's still a pretty freaky situation — especially when weird phenomena like electronic disruptions and other forces with no scientific explanation start to surface. The girl also has no memory of who she is. That has to make you want to watch at least the first episode.

"I was immediately struck by how strong the writing is," says Tolman, who never thought she'd be doing a network drama but immediately knew she wanted to work with creators Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas.

The cast has been having trouble keeping the mystery a secret, as Zabryna Guevara (Abby, Jo's pediatrician friend) admits. You would too if you knew the reason there were sudden blackouts and other occurrences that whoever is tuning into to this show for the first time probably won't get.

We tried to get spoilers out of Butters and Fazekas, but they managed to keep their silence. It's just so tantalizing when you're standing right in front of the people who know exactly how this season, and potentially next season, ends.

Watch on to see what you can unearth from the teasers!

This article was contributed by Elizabeth Rayne.