This is an interesting show. It manages to be Diverse enough to allow gate keeper approval, ("Swear allegiance to the flag; Whatever flag they offer"), while not being Woke enough to be a pointless exercise in culture war brain bludgeoning.
Writers and producers who try to aim themselves away from nihilism and toward the creation are worth giving a chance, but they do have a tendency towards awkwardness and being too 'precious' in their writing and production. Like Christian TV, where people are often play-acting at being good when really they're just virtue signaling over top of mechanical selves, or some variation of that (you don't have to be religious to be play acting and failing to integrate your dark side).
However, in this first episode, while there is some awkwardness present and while it comes close to making you want to cringe, it never actually crosses the line. I get the impression that the rough edges have more to do with regular production dynamics; it's hard to get all cylinders firing correctly; for a show to find its feet. For a pilot, this is actually quite solid. By the end, I was quite invested despite the paint-by-numbers story telling.
-The story itself is nothing new; is in fact a very common formula today, (wonder child escapes from mad scientist keepers; adventure and chase scenes ensue), is a common enough tale now that I have to wonder why. Myths don't pop up into public conscious for no reason. Because of this, and because it is well made enough and the characters interesting enough, I look forward to seeing more.
As well.., it might mean nothing, but the little girl looks like a young Tim Pool. -And she's not the first.\
**************Update Oct 16
After watching subsequent episodes, the cringe factor became too much for me to bear. I'm out.
While the Woke Quotient remained faithfully out of the red zone, the level of ignorance regarding social, professional and technological reality in every form became aggravating beyond my ability to sit through. You can only palm your face so many times before deciding you've had enough.
Episode 2 offers shallow, silly scripting by people who don't appear to carry any insight into anything beyond the minimal basics required to get through an uninteresting and average person's day. Their imagined projections of what police do, of what bad guys do, of how physics work are banal and wrong. You can't convincingly make something seem extraordinary if you don't know the first thing about what ordinary looks like. (Though, we do see that care was taken to depict the main character responsibly using a strong box safe to store her sidearm in her house. Several times. The writers deemed *that* item important to merit research. Perhaps if they had invested the same level of energy into researching all the other important parts of the story rather than just their pet political signals, the story world as a whole would have been far more engaging).
The problem is I think because "Woke" culture requires the real-time editing out of unacceptable truths from reality, the elements of awareness needed for channeling creative energies also takes a hit. The result is that the authors can't detect the difference between good script and bad script. But that's just a theory.
Anyway, I'm reducing my star rating from an original 7/10 based on a promising pilot to a 5/10, and I'll also offer a prediction that there will be no season 2 -AND that nobody will read these reviews in a year because "Emergence" will have by then been thoroughly forgotten.
Writers and producers who try to aim themselves away from nihilism and toward the creation are worth giving a chance, but they do have a tendency towards awkwardness and being too 'precious' in their writing and production. Like Christian TV, where people are often play-acting at being good when really they're just virtue signaling over top of mechanical selves, or some variation of that (you don't have to be religious to be play acting and failing to integrate your dark side).
However, in this first episode, while there is some awkwardness present and while it comes close to making you want to cringe, it never actually crosses the line. I get the impression that the rough edges have more to do with regular production dynamics; it's hard to get all cylinders firing correctly; for a show to find its feet. For a pilot, this is actually quite solid. By the end, I was quite invested despite the paint-by-numbers story telling.
-The story itself is nothing new; is in fact a very common formula today, (wonder child escapes from mad scientist keepers; adventure and chase scenes ensue), is a common enough tale now that I have to wonder why. Myths don't pop up into public conscious for no reason. Because of this, and because it is well made enough and the characters interesting enough, I look forward to seeing more.
As well.., it might mean nothing, but the little girl looks like a young Tim Pool. -And she's not the first.\
**************Update Oct 16
After watching subsequent episodes, the cringe factor became too much for me to bear. I'm out.
While the Woke Quotient remained faithfully out of the red zone, the level of ignorance regarding social, professional and technological reality in every form became aggravating beyond my ability to sit through. You can only palm your face so many times before deciding you've had enough.
Episode 2 offers shallow, silly scripting by people who don't appear to carry any insight into anything beyond the minimal basics required to get through an uninteresting and average person's day. Their imagined projections of what police do, of what bad guys do, of how physics work are banal and wrong. You can't convincingly make something seem extraordinary if you don't know the first thing about what ordinary looks like. (Though, we do see that care was taken to depict the main character responsibly using a strong box safe to store her sidearm in her house. Several times. The writers deemed *that* item important to merit research. Perhaps if they had invested the same level of energy into researching all the other important parts of the story rather than just their pet political signals, the story world as a whole would have been far more engaging).
The problem is I think because "Woke" culture requires the real-time editing out of unacceptable truths from reality, the elements of awareness needed for channeling creative energies also takes a hit. The result is that the authors can't detect the difference between good script and bad script. But that's just a theory.
Anyway, I'm reducing my star rating from an original 7/10 based on a promising pilot to a 5/10, and I'll also offer a prediction that there will be no season 2 -AND that nobody will read these reviews in a year because "Emergence" will have by then been thoroughly forgotten.
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