Agam Darshi Sees The Sunny Side as an Agoraphobic Vision Guide in SIGHT UNSEEN

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede In the most recent episode of the CTV drama SIGHT UNSEEN, Sunny Patel, played by Agam Darshi, was alone in her home – as usual – but in this instance with a severe craving for a brown sugar latte from a particular venue. “That’s what delivery is for,” suggested Tess Avery, played by Dolly Lewis, via the state-of-the-art, high-tech link that continuously connects the pair. Sunny protested, “I can’t be one of those people that has a single drink delivered.” To which Tess replied, “Sunny, you’re agoraphobic. You’re why delivery exists in the first place.” The history of the delivery business notwithstanding, that lighthearted exchange between Sunny and Tess brings up some of the wider issues at play in SIGHT UNSEEN, which continues its first season with a new episode on Monday, Feb. 26 at 10 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app. Tess is a cop in Vancouver with vision impairment, and Sunny is a seeing-eye guide in New York who is helping Tess adjust through cutting-edge technology. As viewers have discovered, however, Sunny has issues of her own, having suffered serious trauma that has left her agoraphobic. Darshi, a British-Canadian who now lives in Los Angeles, recognizes that Sunny is far more relatable to worldwide audiences now than she would have been even five years ago. “It’s definitely very relevant to the time that we live in, because I think COVID just really made us all feel so much more vulnerable,” Darshi said. “It made us all realize that we need community, and that we need each other. But also, it made it very clear that it’s very easy to sort of be alone by yourself in a room for days at a time.” So in other words, many viewers might be looking at Sunny and thinking, “you know, there have been times when I haven’t been too far removed from her condition, and it wouldn’t take too much to get me back there again.” “Exactly,” Darshi agreed, “I was talking to Karen Troubetzkoy (who co-created SIGHT UNSEEN with her sister Nikolijne) just the other day, and she will admit that her default position is to just stay at home and be on her own. She says, you know, you have to check yourself, because all of a sudden, days go by, and you realize, ‘I haven’t left the house.’ Now, I’m one of those people who needs to get out, I need to go for walks, things like that. But for people who are particularly sensitive to the outside world, and have certain anxiety, their home is like their little nest. It’s great that you have Amazon, and you have Uber Eats, and you have all those things, but sometimes it’s almost prolonging the need for attention, and for help.” Sunny and Tess are in the business of helping each other in SIGHT UNSEEN, and their comfort level with each other has increased in each episode, early hiccups notwithstanding. It was suggested to Darshi that Sunny has a lot of responsibility in this circumstance, especially with Tess determined to continue fighting crime. “I talked to somebody who actually does this (seeing-eye guide) for a living, and he was saying to me that in the real world, it’s much more contained, obviously, right?” Darshi explained. “It can be as straightforward as, ‘there’s the can of beans,’ or ‘those socks go together.’ So we’re kind of dramatizing it quite a bit. But these people are so good at their jobs. They are trained to use very concise language. And we spoke a lot about, how much information does Sunny provide Tess? We started out doing a lot, and then throughout the course of the season, Sunny starts to give a little bit less information, because Tess is getting more used to her situation. It just felt like the right sort of creative choice.” Having taken on this role in SIGHT UNSEEN, does Darshi now find herself whispering into people’s ears more often, and kind of telling them what to do? “No, I think it’s my natural state,” Darshi said with a laugh. “My husband would probably tell you that it’s actually very close to who I am.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv