‘Sight Unseen’ Star Dolly Lewis Shares Thoughts on Intense Series Premiere (Exclusive)

Spoilers ahead for Sight Unseen Season 1, Episode 1 (“Tess”)

The CW’s newest series, , has premiered, and star Dolly Lewis spoke to PopCulture.com all about what happened. The show focuses on Lewis’ Tess Avery, a homicide detective who has to quit her job after nearly getting her longtime partner killed. On top of that, she is diagnosed as clinically blind. Tess ends up using a seeing-eye guide via an app to be her second set of eyes.

In the premiere episode, Tess continues trying to solve the last case she was on before she quit and winds up solving it and saving two victims. Meanwhile, her seeing-eye guide, Sunny, may not be all she says she is. Lewis discussed the premiere and what she hopes will happen next. So, take a look at what she had to say. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

PopCulture: After Tess gets her diagnosis, she up and quits without giving any reason why. Why do you think she isn’t telling anyone about her news?

Dolly Lewis: Well, I think it’s easy to misinterpret somebody’s reticence or a lie when we are hurt by it. But zooming out, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s too harrowing for Tess to even say out loud. Sometimes, things can feel like they’re still in our control as long as we don’t talk about them. I’m sure every single person on the planet has experienced that at some point in their life. If I just don’t open my mouth, this doesn’t exist, and it isn’t real. And it’s a very human self-defense mechanism, I think it’s a very universal one. So I can understand why the other characters might’ve been hurt, felt betrayed, felt really worried, but I think it’s really understandable. It was just too painful to face.

PC: Do you hope that she will tell them in the future, or do you think she’s just going to keep it to herself and to her closest friends?

Lewis: I hope that she will because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a little bit like Tess in that I’m also really independent and can sometimes veer off into lone wolf territory, life is really hard by yourself. It’s so much more fun when you clue other people into your experience and get to be a part of theirs. It’s just a thousand times better, so for her sake, I’m really hoping she spills the beans.

PC: Tess later finds out that the suspect she let get away still had the victim alive in the trunk. What do you think was going through her mind at that moment, especially since there was really nothing that she could have done?

Lewis: The fact that there’s nothing that she could have done, I don’t think that factors in to somebody like Tess and her processing. I think to get to where she did professionally, like I said earlier, it requires so much determination and resilience and grit, and I don’t think she’s going to let herself off the hook that easily. So I think what was happening in her was a tremendous sense of guilt, a tremendous sense of having dropped the ball, tremendous sense of having let somebody down and failed at her job, which she puts above everything else at that point when we meet her at the start of the series. Her job is her life, and so I don’t think there’s any higher stakes than that for her. And I think she’s absolutely devastated and feels responsible.

PC: And of course, even after quitting, Tess can’t stay away from the case, and she even ends up following through with it and solving it with the help of her seeing eye guide Sonny. Can we assume that she regrets her decision to quit since she obviously can’t stay away from the job? 

Lewis: Regrets her decision to quit? I don’t know. I think there might actually be a part of Tess Avery that feels freed up to do things her own way. It’s not that she was necessarily hampered by being officially on the force, but I think she’s willing to see this as an opportunity to really spread her wings and fly.

PC: Speaking of her seeing eye guide, Sunny, we find out that she may not be exactly who she says she is, and she seems to have a pretty dark past. What can you tease about her storyline and getting deeper into her whole backstory?

Lewis: Oh, my goodness. Oh, you’re getting me into dangerous territory, I’m not sure how much I can spill. But I will say that Tess has some really profound circumstances to deal with when we meet her. And Kat and Nico Troubetzkoy certainly did an amazing job of matching her as a counterpoint to Sunny, who has as a universe unto herself; I will put it like that. She has circumstances that match Tess and more. 

PC: Is there anything else that you’re hoping to do on the series storyline-wise?

Lewis: Oh my God, yeah. I mean, there’s just so much room for delving more into how technology has infiltrated everyone’s lives, not just people with sight divergence, but every single person, for better or worse, has an intimate relationship with technology these days. And I think we have an opportunity to really explore that in an interesting way here and to also continue to see how somebody with divergence in their sight is still just a regular person. Tess is incredible in that she solves cases in remarkable ways by the skin of her teeth. She’s grappling with a whole new reality for herself, a fun and troubling new relationship that she can’t let go of, but she’s still just a regular person. She’s still trying to figure out how to get her younger brother to put the dishes away, she’s still trying to figure out how to go on a fun date. So seeing how she’s human in that way is the direction I would love to continue to explore.

New episodes of Sight Unseen air on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.