Today, the final season of A Discovery of Witches, based on the trio of novels by Deborah Harkness, premieres on AMC+, Sundance Now, and Shudder in the US.

When witch Diana, played by Teresa Palmer, and vampire Matthew (Matthew Goode) return from 1590 to their own time to continue their hunt to recover the elusive Ashmole 782, Diana is already pregnant. Now having the experience of being a mother in real life, Palmer was impacted in the way she played the character this season, the actress told Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview. “I got to dive back into the feelings of becoming a mother for the first time,” said Palmer, “because that's a very special certain feeling of newness, newness and anticipation and excitement. Also, you're very nervous, and you're trying to find your footing.”

The actress also said that she played a big part in the way the birthing scene comes to fruition. “I met with the writers; I met with Deb, and I just kind of folded in some of the sisterhood element to the birth experience and incorporating Alex Kingston in the birth a lot, that real sort of [feminine] divine energy that sort of takes over when you give birth, or when some women give birth, and I wanted that experience for Diana on screen.”

***The following interview contains spoilers for 6.05***

With just six episodes this season, The Expanse is barreling toward its series finale faster than a slingshot racer on the Jupiter-6 run.  This week, the penultimate episode, “Why We Fight,” finally brought Chrisjen Avasarala and Camina Drummer together in a moment that was worth waiting for. Their meeting on Ceres was a brief scene loaded with six seasons of political conflict and personal loss.

Throughout the series, Avasarala has lost her son, her marriage, her position, and power. Her planet was attacked, her people devastated, and her husband killed. SciFi Vision asked actress Shohreh Aghdashloo in an exclusive interview what drives Chrisjen to continue to lead in the face of such tremendous cost, and what brought her to an alliance with Drummer’s fleet. 

Tonight, CBS premieres the new medical drama Good Sam, which follows heart surgeon Dr. Sam Griffith (Sophia Bush), who takes on the role of chief of surgery after her boss and father, the arrogant Dr. Rob “Griff” Griffith, played by Jason Isaacs, falls into a coma. Upon his return, Griff, unable to accept his daughter’s new authority, goes toe to toe with Sam, defying and questioning her at every turn.

One of the things that was of interest to Isaacs in taking on the role of Griffith was the father-daughter relationship. When asked about his reason for joining the cast during a recent exclusive interview with Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision, the actor talked about his relationship with his own daughters who are now becoming adults. “I've got teenage daughters, one's nineteen, and that whole thing of letting go of thinking that you are the puppet master and realizing that they're surpassed you in navigating the world…just that at the heart of this was the father and daughter [relationship].”

Isaacs was also interested in the role because of the showrunners. “[Katie Wech]’s running it in such a different style from any of the men I've ever encountered in such an extraordinary way, and she gives out such a collaborative energy…Just having spoken to her and engaged with her, I wanted to jump in and see what the experience was like.”

***The following interview contains spoilers for episodes 6.03 and 6.04***

Midway through season six, The Expanse’s war for control of the Belt and the rings turned personal for Jim Holden (Steven Strait).  In episode 6.03, “Force Projection,” with the Pella in his sights, Holden had a choice: act as a captain and kill Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander), or act as Naomi’s (Dominique Tipper) partner and spare her son, Filip Inaros (Jasai Chase-Owens).

Holden made his choice but told nobody, knowing most of his crew would not approve. He had to know that someone would follow up on the dud torpedo sooner or later, and sure enough, the secret’s out in the next episode 6.04, “Redoubt”. And while Holden did what he did for Naomi, her reaction took him by surprise.

Recently, Insight Editions released the book Tech Noir: The Art of James Cameron to display the journey of the artist’s evolution by giving a look into his personal art archives, including rare never-before-seen works from his private collection. The book showcases many of the ideas that lead to aesthetics of some of his most successful films, such as The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, and Avatar, as well as work from unrealized projects and everything in between.

During a recent roundtable interview promoting the book, Cameron talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision about the feeling of getting to see his designs on screen for the first time in a succesful film such as The Terminator and how it gave him confidence to do even more. “I think that gave me the confidence to then go and hunt much, much bigger prey,” said Cameron. “I moved up to going after mammoths after that. So, I went from The Terminator to Aliens, a sequel to a beloved film that had a huge global impact.”

The director continued that because the director of the original film Alien, Ridley Scott, was largely popular at that point, many people tried to talk him out of it, but he didn’t listen, and he did it in his own way. “They said, ‘[I]f you make a good film, everybody's going to credit Ridley, and if you make a stinker, it's because you're not Ridley.’ I literally had serious producers, knowledgeable people, try to talk me out of it, but I just stuck to my guns and said, ‘Yeah, but I like it. I'm just just a fanboy.’...I just wanted to do my version of it, but the cheekiness is, my version of it, not slavishly doing just a continuation of Ridley’s style and story.”

Mother/Android, which is set in the near future, shows events unfolding when androids, which were built to serve man, revolt and start killing all the humans. The narrative follows a young couple, Georgia (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Sam (Algee Smith) as they cross the country looking for a safe haven before their baby is born.

According to writer and director Mattson Tomlin, screenwriter of the upcoming The Batman movie, Mother/Android was inspired by the story of his birth parents. “The movie started as a love letter to my biological parents,” he told Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview. “I wanted to talk about my own adoption story. I was born [right] after the Romanian revolution, and this very young couple found themselves pregnant with the world totally on fire in this kind of unprecedented situation. They were nineteen years old, and being I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight when I started writing the script, I just had a little bit more perspective on how young nineteen actually is for the first time. So, it was always, ‘I want to tell that story, and I want to make something for them, but I want to do it in a way that is going to be fun and entertaining and kind of throws down the gauntlet for the kind of filmmaker that I want to be.’ And that's that's how it was born.”

Based on the book series by Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time is set in a fantastical world where magic exists, but only some can wield it. The story follows Moiraine of the Aes Sendai (Rosamund Pike), a group of women who can channel the One Power. With the help of her Warder, Lan (Daniel Henney), she must find the Dragon Reborn, the reincarnation of a channeler who is prophesied to either save the world from the Dark One or destroy it. In the village of Two Rivers, they come across five young men and women, believing one of them of could be the one they are looking for.

In adapting fourteen books into a television series, it’s extremely important to set the right pace and take the right pieces. Executive producers Mike Weber and Marigo Kehoe talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision during a roundtable about how they decide what to use. According to Weber, “I think it comes out of, what's the best way to tell a story and what's the best way to have a season unfold to the best dramatic effect for an audience that has seen a lot of fantasy,” said Weber. “I mean, there're a lot of shows that have sort of come before this, so it's having it sort of be premium and be excellent for the non-fans and the fans alike. So, choices like that, I think sort of influence what plot was brought up and what characters were made to sort of service that.”

Written and directed by Mattson Tomlin, the science fiction film Mother/Android premieres today on Hulu. The movie takes place in the near future when artificially intelligent androids made to help humans revolt and start killing everyone. The story follows a pregnant Georgia, played by Chloë Grace Moretz, and her boyfriend Sam, played by Algee Smith, leading up to days before the baby's birth when they must cross into android territory to make it to safety.

Tomlin being at the forefront of the project is what originally drew her to the film, Moretz told Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision during an exclusive video interview. “Of course, the story was incredibly well written,” said the actress, “I thought the script was beautiful, but it was my conversation with Mattson that followed that. To hear his personal connection to the story and why he wrote the script and how it's based on his family and what he's been through, I knew immediately that it was a project that I couldn't ever say no to. I needed to be Georgia, and I felt such a palpable connection in that moment, that I knew that there was there was no other option, for sure.”

The series Firebite, which premieres tonday on AMC+, is a vampire series set in a remote desert mining town where the creatures take shelter from the sun in underground mines and tunnels. War is coming to the town as their numbers grow and vampire hunters Tyson, played by Rob Collins, and Shanika, played by Shantae Barnes-Cowan) take up the fight.

According to Collins, who talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision during a recent roundtable interview, it was both because of Australia’s Warwick Thorton, who created the series, and the subject matter that he joined the cast. “I'd always wanted to work with him. I got a small taste of it on an Australian series called Mystery Road, the second series. He's kind of just one of our go-to amazing directors. So, there was that and vampire killer. So, those two things combined, I just had to do this project.”

Yael Stone, who plays Eleona on the series, told the SciFi Vision that Thorton was also a draw for her as was the unique take on the vampire story. “The scripts that I was sent were just so fascinating. I just felt like we have not done this before. We've not addressed Indigenous Australian history and a kind of violent colonial Australian history in this way before, using a vampire metaphor before, and I think it's extraordinarily creative. It's a really clever way in telling that story, and it's got heaps of joy and laughs and fun, and then, at it’s heart, it's got this incredibly powerful and incredibly serious metaphor as well.”

Interview contains spoilers for 6.01

The Expanse returned last Friday for its sixth and final season, picking up right where it left off.  Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander, Tyrant) and his Free Navy are still at war with Earth and Mars, with most of the characters lined up against him. After betraying Marco, Camina Drummer (Cara Gee, Strange Empire) and her crew are on the run, while James Holden (Steven Strait) and the crew of the Rocinante remain free agents working with UN Secretary General Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo).

The Expanse is a space saga, but it’s also about finding your family, and if episode 6.01 (”Strange Dogs”) is any indication, it looks like this season is going to stretch its families to the limit. The gang on the Rocinante are still grieving Alex (Cas Anvar)’s death last season, and they’re not all thrilled to have Clarissa, aka Peaches (Nadine Nicole), aboard. Drummer’s people on the Tynan are also reeling from their losses, and as captain, she is going to have to make some tough decisions to save the people she loves. Marco, meanwhile, is having trouble with his own family – namely his son, Filip (Jasai Chase Owens). Still a target of Marco’s cruelty and manipulation, Filip is using alcohol, sex, and bravado to quiet his inner conflict, with limited success.