The Leverage crew join forces once again to take on the wealthy and corrupt and help out the worthy, taking on all new cons and adventures. The second eight episodes of Leverage: Redemption premiere October 8th on IMDb TV. SciFi Vision recently caught up with executive producers Dean Devlin and Kate Rorick to talk about the series, including why they didn't recast Timothy Hutton, the imporance of keeping the tone, a possible season two, and more.

Devlin never gave up on Leverage returning. “From the day that it was cancelled, I never gave up on the idea of bringing it back, and even if I wanted to give up on that idea, the fans weren't going to let me. I mean, Leverage has the most incredible fan base in the world, and not a day went by that I didn't get some DM saying, ‘When are you bringing it back?’ as though I could just bring it back.

“So, we tried a million different versions, different ideas on how to bring it back, but when Amazon announced that they were doing IMDb TV, it seemed like it might be a really good fit. I sat down with them a little over two years ago, and we started talking about it and exploring how [we could] do this together. What would make sense? What story would work?

“When we finally landed on Redemption, we got that green light that we were so desperate for, and we got to bring the show back, and it was incredibly satisfying.”

Tonight, The Walking Dead: World Beyond returns to AMC. Aliyah Royale stars as high school student Iris Bennet. At the end of last season, Huck (Annet Mahendru) took Hope (Alexa Mansour) back to the facility in New York, leaving her sister, Iris, behind with Felix (Nico Tortorella). She may have lost her sister for the time being, but Iris is as determined as ever, and with the campus colony destroyed, she’s not about to go down without a fight.

Thursday SciFi Vision caught up with Royale for an exclusive interview, and we talked about how the show has changed her life, how she’s adapted to the horror element, why Iris reacted the way she did in the premiere, how much she looks up to Julia Ormond, and more.

***The following interview contains spoilers for the second season premiere***

Seth Gilliam plays the role of Father Gabriel on The Walking Dead, which aired tonight on AMC. This season Gabriel joined the mission with Maggie (Lauren Cohan)’s group to bring food and water back from Meridian to Alexandria, and recently, they have been hiding from Pope (Ritchie Coster) and the other Reapers.

Thursday, Gilliam talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about tonight’s episode, why his character reacted how he did when he found the Reaper praying, Gabriel’s faith, what he finds challenging about the role, and more.

***This interview contains spoilers for 11.07***

Last season, on The Walking Dead: World Beyond, Elizabeth (Julia Ormond) sent Huck (Annet Mahendru), who it was revealed was her daughter, to retrieve Hope (Alexa Mansour) and bring her back to their facility in New York. Although Huck betrayed her and she had to leave her sister, Iris (Aliyah Royale), Hope left with Huck so she wouldn’t kill her sister or their friends.

Ormond, Mahendru, and Mansour talked to the media last week about season two and what fans can expect.

Ormond talked to SciFi Vision about Elizabeth’s acceptance of all things she has been doing and turning a blind eye to. “My take is that Elizabeth is somebody who compartmentalizes what emotion she will show to what person. So, if something is bothering her profoundly, she would have trouble showing that to somebody she's intimate with, just because of her personality type. I think really what happens with Elizabeth is…what happens to her belief in what they're doing in season two.

“In season one, for me, she's utterly, utterly committed to an agenda that's necessary. They've identified that Hope actually has something that could be really critical to the survival of mankind - if she comes in with the right attitude…[and] doesn't bring in the anger; she goes along with the plan of what they're meant to be doing, and she's productive and effective in her time there.

“And I do think that it's not black and white, or I hope it's not black and white. It's more kind of gray. It's like she has to sign up for something that she's not happy about, but I think people do that in war all of the time. In the military, you accept that there are people who are going to die, and you accept the tragedy. I think we as a populace accept the tragedy of collateral damage. So, I don't think it's as much of a pivot as I wish it was in the world.”

Last season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond introduced the character of Dr. Lyla Bellshaw, played by Natalie Gold, who while working for the Civil Republic has been experimenting on empties. Dating Dr. Leo Bennett, played by Joe Holt, she revealed to the CRM information about his daughter, Hope (Alexa Mansour), who he believes is a genius. This is what caused Elizabeth (Julia Ormond) to send her daughter, Huck (Annet Mahendru), undercover to get Hope and bring her, with force if necessary, to their facility in New York.

Holt and Gold recently spoke to journalists about season two of the series, how their characters feel about each other, and more.

The two actors talked about their relationship on the series and confirmed they had real feelings for each other, however, with Lyla working for the CRM, there are trust issues. Gold talked to SciFi Vision about the questions it leaves. “I think I kind of love the way that season one ends and teases that up, because those are all the questions. [Can] we trust Lyla? Does she have ulterior motives? What are her ulterior motives? It became kind of clear in season one by the end of that episode and that monologue that she has that she really wants to go and tell Leo, and she ends up not telling him that she's kind of the catalyst for this whole thing starting. It's because Leo came to Lyla and said, ‘I have this daughter who's brilliant,’ and Lyla obviously then told her higher ups.

“So, I think that this season is kind of a great exploration for Lyla's character, her push and pull between her love for Leo and her real belief in the greater good. What's the balance? How much is one life worth versus hundreds of thousands of lives and the work that she's doing? So, it'll all be explored in season two.”

Released today by Magnolia Pictures, in theaters and on Demand, Karen Cinorre’s fantasy film Mayday follows Ana, played by Grace Van Patten, who suddenly finds herself in a new and dangerous place on the coast where women are in a war with men, who they lure to their death with radio signals.

Van Patten recently spoke to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about the film, including what drew her to the role, what she found challenging, how she connected to the character, and more.

She told the site that when choosing characters, she looks for depth. “I do find it's getting better, but that's hard to come by with female roles, and when I see that there's depth or layers or complexity to any character, I'm so intrigued, because when [I] see that there's opportunity beyond the page, that excites me a lot.”

The actress loved the script. “I read the script and instantly was so drawn into it and transported, and [it's] not very often I read a script and I just want to read it again. I reread it, and I found that every time I read it, I found something new: a new meaning, a new little gem. And I thought it was so magical, every part of it: how it explored sisterhood and connection and grief and empowerment. I was instantly hooked, and I met Karen, and she's such a visionary and had such a specific eye for what she wanted, and I just I knew I had to be a part.”

Last week, for the first time, ABC aired The Conners live on two coasts. Cast members Emma Kenney, who plays Harris Conner-Healy, Ames McNamara, who plays Mark Conner-Healy, and Jayden Rey, who plays Mary Conner, talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about what it is like to perform as part of a live show, how working on The Conners has changed their lives, and more.

One of the things that the young actors find most difficult is when lines are added or changed in the script at the last minute. Kenney, however, looks at it like a brain puzzle. “Sometimes you'll kind of memorize a scene a certain way, and then the next day it'll be completely different, but it's also keeps us on our toes.”
 
McNamara, agreed the last-minute changes can be difficult, especially during a live show. On that night, his character called up people live to ask them questions and they added more of it. “The third call that we did on the on the eastern time show, it actually was not supposed to happen in the script, but we had time, so right before we [went] on, they said, “Oh, Ames let's do another call.”…That was definitely tricky, but it all worked out.”

The series La Brea, which is filmed in Melbourne, Australia, starts with a massive sinkhole opening up in the middle of Los Angeles, and everything around it starts being pulled inside, including people. Families are torn apart by the disaster, but somehow, those who fall inside find themselves alive in a dangerous and primeval land where they must work together to navigate their dangerous new home.

Cast members Natalie Zea (Eve Harris), Eoin Macken (Gavin Harris), Jack Martin (Josh Harris), Zyra Gorecki (Izzy Harris), Jon Seda (Dr. Sam Velez), and Chiké Okonkwo (Ty Coleman), as well as creator and showrunner David Appelbaum, took part in a panel as part of the TCA Summer Press Tour to talk about the new series, which premieres tonight on NBC.

The cast talked to SciFi Vision about what attracted them to the roles. Zea was happy to get a part where her character is not dependent on her male counterpart. “I'm usually a wife or an ex‑wife, and that story favors pretty primarily in a lot of the work I do. What was great about this was even though I am an ex‑wife and a mom, my identity isn't surrounded by that. I get to have a full story that has to do with how I'm sort of navigating this world as opposed to what my relationship is with my significant other. Even in 2021, it's rather fresh especially for me. So, I was really excited to explore being able to play something that was sort of independent of my SO.”

Thursday, Big Sky returns for season two to ABC. At the end of season one, Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) was shot by one of Ronald (Brian Geraghty)’s accomplice’s before he and Scarlet (Anja Savcic) took off, and Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) got in a police cruiser and took off after him.

Season two picks up after this cliffhanger, but also introduces a new storyline, dealing with a car wreck outside of Helena Montana and some unsuspecting teens who get more than they bargained for.

Recently, Winnick and Bunbury, along with John Carroll Lynch and new cast members Janina Gavankar and Logan Marshall-Green, as well as executive producer, Elwood Reid, took part in a panel as part of the TCA summer press tour to talk about the new season.

According to Reid, there will be one main mystery this season that keeps twisting and turning, as well as new villains. “We're going to sort of tackle one big mystery, and that mystery is going to pull in all of our characters that find themselves in the wake of last season…In the midst of that storyline, a new story jumps off…It's about some kids that happen to stumble upon a very violent and bloody accident in which drugs and money are taken from the crime scene. That brings the attention of our new baddie this year, who's going to bring in some more baddies, a character named Ren, played by Janina Gavankar. She's going to come and try to mess things up ‑ as you do in Big Sky.”

***This interview contains episode spoilers***

The series Evil follows psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter), and private contractor Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi), as they investigate cases dealing with phenomena involving miracles and possession, to decide whether they have a scientific explanation behind them or are something else.

Christine Lahti plays the role of Sheryl Luria, Kristen’s mother. In last week's episode, Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), an expert in the occult who is in league with the devil, introduced her to influencer Edward Tragoren (Tim Matheson), who drugged her so that Leland could inject the two of them with an unknown substance and perform some kind of weird transfusion.