Tonight AMC premieres its new series 61st Street, which follows high school track star Moses Johnson, played by Tosin Cole, who witnesses a shooting during a drug bust and flees, which starts off a chain of events that puts him in the middle of the corrupt Chicago criminal justice system when a police officer ends up dead.

The series highlights a lot of what’s going on in the world today, tacking real world issues of racial profiling, institutional racism, police corruption, and more. Cole feels honored to be in such a series and takes it seriously. “You feel like you’ve been chosen to be a vessel for a bigger discussion,” Cole told SciFi Vision during an exclusive interview. “Obviously there’s a sense of responsibility that you have. I mean, obviously, I’m a black man, so I’m trying to make sure I represent and tell the story the best way I can and as truthful as I can, and, obviously, you want to make sure it’s part of a bigger discussion and a discussion that’s held with empathy…I’m just honored to be a part of that discussion and to make something that effects people in that way and [makes] them think.”

The actor continued that the series is based in Chicago, but the themes are universal.

Tomorrow night, The CW premieres its new game show, Would I Lie To You?, based on the British panel series of the same name. Actor and comedian Aasif Mandvi takes Rob Brydon’s role as host, with Matt Walsh and Sabrina Jalees taking on Lee Mack and David Mitchell’s roles as team captains. For each show, two celebrities join each captain to make up the two teams. Players take turns revealing outrageous and unusual facts, and the opposing team of panelists must decide if they are telling the truth or lying.

Mandvi, who recently took part in a roundtable to talk about hosting the new show, told SciFi Vision that he was “very familiar” with the original series. “I was addicted to the original series,” said Mandvi, “and that's why I wanted to do this one. My wife and I just ended up watching it. I think it was in 2019 we discovered it, maybe 2018. I found it on Britbox, and I just started watching it. They’ve got fourteen seasons of the British one, so there was just a lot of material there. So, we would watch it at night as a way to just decompress…We would just use it as a way to kind of just chill and laugh.”

Recently, the series Halo, which is based on the hugely-popular video game franchise, premiered on Paramount Plus, airing it's third episode yesterday. During a roundtable interview promoting the series, actresses Yerin Ha, who plays Kwan, and Jen Taylor, who plays Cortana, talked to SciFi Vision about what parts they have an easy and more difficult time connecting with.

For Ha, the most difficult part is working with blue and green screens. “I think that was really difficult,” said the actress, “because your imagination has to be on point. They can show you a storyboard and all that kind of stuff, but whatever actually comes to life is so different to how you picture it in your head. [You have] to kind of make sure that that's in check.”

Monday night, NBC aired its third consecutive week of singers on American Song Contest, which consisted of twelve more solo artists or groups performing, including Jewel, representing the state of Alaska. After the live show, SciFi Vision took part in a virtual red carpet event where the press was able to talk to most of the performers, including Tyler Braden, who won song of the night and moved directly to the semi-finals. Three more acts to move on will be chosen next Monday.

Watch our interviews with the contestants below and stay tuned for more coverage. 

On Monday night, twelve more solo artists or groups performed on American Song Contest for week three.  After the live show, the press attended a virtual red carpet to talk to contestants about their performances as well as Snoop Dogg about hosting the competition. We were curious about what kind of song Snoop would enter into a competition like American Song Contest if he were a contestant himself. “I don't even know if I have a song that I've written that qualifies for this,” he told SciFi Vision. “I would probably take my time to write what I've been through and what I'd like to see the world become.”

Watch our interview below, and for interviews with the contestants of week three, stay tuned, and look for more coverage next week!

The tension is building as Chicago P.D. races toward its season finale. Last night’s episode (9.17, “Adrift”) was a rough one for Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger); they are both still reeling from Makayla’s abduction, and it’s anyone’s guess what will happen with this fan-favorite couple. Meanwhile, Voight (Jason Beghe) took a break from the Escano investigation to support Ruzek with a drug case. With only five episodes to go, you can be sure that Voight and Anna (Carmela Zumbado) will be back in the bakery soon. Voight has a lot of confidence in his informant, but if she’s found out, Escano will surely kill her. 

SciFi Vision caught up with Jason Beghe last week at NBC’s One Chicago press day. We asked him about Voight’s obvious soft spot for Anna and what it is that draws him to her.

“I think that they're both lonely,” Beghe observed, “and so that's one thing. She has Rafa, her son, but that's about it. She's lost all her family, like Voight, and she is very, very single minded and focused and willing to do whatever at her own peril. She's an emotionally invested person, for sure; so is Voight.”

ALERT THE CLONE CLUB!
AMC NETWORKS GREENLIGHTS ORPHAN BLACK: ECHOES
 
New Series Produced by Boat Rocker Set in Orphan Black Universe to Premiere in 2023
 
NEW YORK – April 6, 2022 –  AMC Networks today announced that it had greenlit Orphan Black: Echoes, a long-awaited new series set in the world of the landmark series Orphan Black, to appear on AMC+ and the company’s linear networks in 2023. Produced and distributed globally by Boat Rocker, the company behind the original series, Orphan Black: Echoes will have a 10-episode first season. Anna Fishko (Pieces of Her, The Society, Fear the Walking Dead) is creator, writer, showrunner and executive producer with John Fawcett, the co-creator of the original series who also directed 17 episodes across all five seasons, on as director and executive producer. David Fortier and Ivan Schneeberg, executive producers from Boat Rocker on the original Orphan Black series, return as executive producers on the new series. Katie O’Connell Marsh, Nick Nantell, and Kerry Appleyard will also executive produce for Boat Rocker.
 
Set in the near future, the new Orphan Black takes a deep dive into the exploration of the scientific manipulation of human existence. It follows a group of women as they weave their way into each other's lives and embark on a thrilling journey, unravelling the mystery of their identity and uncovering a wrenching story of love and betrayal.

***The following interview contains spoilers for 11.15***

This week, on an all-new episode of The Walking Dead, we saw Mercer reflect on what he did, killing two Commonwealth soldiers and covering it up. According to Michael James Shaw who plays the character, in the moment, Mercer felt that was his only choice. “I think from from the moment where he finds out in the house safe room that Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson) has been behind the whole thing, he's pretty upset and a little shaken that it all transpired under his nose,” Shaw told SciFi Vision during an exclusive interview. “It's the only action that I think he feels he has the power to take in that moment, because you can't take out the root of the problem. The only way to eliminate the cancer is to take out the soldiers that were involved.

“…[Y]ou see him act. You see him react, as opposed to making a calculated move. He just he reacts. When he hears that they sent forty other civilians and Commonwealth soldiers into this house to get money, I think that's baffling to him, that they would have that kind of disregard for these Commonwealth lives.”

***The following interview contains spoilers for 11.15***

On tonight’s all-new episode of The Walking Dead, Princess, played by Paola Lázaro, gets closer to Mercer (Michael James Shaw) and gets him to open up. “I think they tear each other’s walls down,” Lázaro told SciFi Vision during a recent exclusive interview. “They disarm each other, and I think that's how they connect, and I love that.”

“Princess has always seen more to Mercer than what lies behind his armor, which is a very vulnerable and beautiful human being,” added the actress, saying that Mercer sees what’s behind Princess’s comedic behavior as well. “He sees a really interesting, vulnerable woman that he's actually interested in getting to know more.”

The actress went on to talk about how Princess doesn’t question it when Mercer admits killing the soldiers and covering it up. “I think Princess is such a loyal character,” said Lázaro, “and she would do anything for her friends, if she knows they're good people. I think at this point, she knows that he's a good person. So, she's willing to sit down with him and go through the logistics of why this event happened…She's a very tough woman, too, so she's ready to sit down and hear the nitty gritty of what happened and willing to support him if she believes that it was warranted.”

Yesterday, Prime Video released the first season of the successful BBC series from creators Stephen Merchant and Elgin James, The Outlaws. The series, which has already been renewed for season two, is a comedy thriller about a group of seven strangers, who after breaking the law, agree to complete community service in leu of jail time. The unlikely group, who are all from different backgrounds and would have otherwise likely never met, are forced to work together to renovate a community center, and in doing so find that they may have more in common than they realize.   

The idea for the series started from memories Merchant had growing up, with his parents being involved in community service looking after criminals. “They would tell me about the sort of people that came through the doors, and it was such an unlikely mix of people,” Merchant told SciFi Vision during a recent roundtable. “In fact, one of them was a kid I went to school with, Dave, who was the world's laziest thief. He one time got caught stealing a TV from someone's house, and the homeowners came back, and they went, ‘Dave, what are you doing?’ And he went, ‘I’m not Dave.’ And they went, ‘Yeah, you are; you live next door.’ He couldn't even go a block over. He literally was stealing from his next-door neighbors. There was Dave and there were other people that would come through the doors, and my parents were talking about these people. It just seemed like a recipe for a drama or a comedy, because you had such unlikely groups forced to work together; sparks could fly. It always seemed like an interesting backdrop. So, I didn't really have more than that. So, I went [and] met up with Elgin, and we kind of started brainstorming.”