The Point Radio: Z NATION Gets More Life

SyFy has renewed their light hearted zombie drama, Z NATION, and we talk to showrunner Craig Engler and (former) star Tom Everett Scott on how they plot their path to be different than that OTHER zombie series. Plus actor Mark Consuelos gets us set up for the new season of ALPHA HOUSE, premiering today on Amazon Prime Video.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It is my crop. Alright stop watching the Avengers trailer and pay attention. We're back behind the scenes at Z Nation. We're talking to the guys at the Sci-Fi series about getting a second season renewal and

just what they have planned for that. Plus the Amazon hit streaming comedy, Alpha House, has a new season that debuts today. And we talked to actor Mark Consuela who tells us she want to know what's going to happen. Just look at the headlines. Let's get to The Point.

This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.

Alright so Z Nation is not your typical zombie TV show if there is such a thing. The Sci-Fi series mixes drama and death with a few life-hearted moments. That's an unusual recipe as agreed to by showrunner Craig Engle. The show vacillates a little bit between serious drama and campy humor. So it kind of whipsaws but it's definitely like a shark noodle was a great idea for a

movie but just couldn't sustain over 13 episodes or hopefully 5 seasons. We really knew going in like we weren't making the shark nado of TV. We were making a TV show and there would be these campy or fun moments in it but it wasn't going to be like a shark nado times 13. So okay why not just be a comedy?

Yeah you know I think it would be very tough for just a pure humor zombie show to survive on TV. I think you need that mix of stuff that people get interested in the characters and want to stick around. But you know then you also have the Liberty Bell crashing down the street in Philadelphia

knowing over a zombie. So you kind of get the best of both worlds. When it comes to competition it comes down to just one. There's not a lot of zombie shows out there at all. You can kind of say like in the flesh maybe the returned.

I don't know I wouldn't even get to that zombie show. So really there's only one thing to compare it to but if you're thinking about it like a cop show like a new cop show everyone doesn't go well that's just like all the other 32 cop shows and you know it's just because we haven't seen a lot of stuff so I think it really took people a little while to get used to it.

And you know I think everyone came in just thinking well it's like going to be just like The Walking Dead and then you know when it wasn't they were kind of like some people were kind of like taking it back. They were like wait they make jokes in this show you know and then they get it like oh they make jokes in the show I get it.

Yeah because it's not The Walking Dead. Already renewed for a second season on Sci-Fi I asked Craig if they were planning ahead. Absolutely. You know when we sit down in the writers room and it's called you know Breaking the Show and we have 13 episodes and those episodes have both plot arcs and character arcs so

the different characters have different arcs that they follow. And then we also know if we get more seasons we know where those were going to go so you know we have it we can't really say anything but we do we know where it's going and where it can go and all the things that we want to do and also what we want to have happen to the characters because that's really important at the end of the day is if you don't care

about anyone in the show then you're probably not going to come back or you know at some point you're going to lose it. So we try to keep you interested in the characters and all the characters have really interesting backstories that we get into slowly but surely. One of those characters is played by actor Tom Everett Scott who has an interesting story

about how he got the work. So a friend of mine John Himes has directed multiple episodes of this show. He's done the Universal Soldier movies, the most recent ones. Before that he did like a lot of docs but I met him in college when he was an art student and I was actually in his very first movie that he ever directed.

So many years later I'm picking my son up from school and John and I have been talking about we were going to get together with another one of our friends but John couldn't because he was in Spokane doing this C Nation and I said as a joke I texted him well if you need any zombies let me know and so then he calls me and he says so I have him on speaker phone and my son Finn's in the back seat and he says you know I actually pitched you to

the guy who's doing the show and they love the idea to play this character Garnet and he pitches me the whole show, hangs up and from the back seat my son's like you're going to do that right? I think it was like you know why wouldn't I go do a zombie series? So he was excited.

So that's pretty much how I got the job. They sent me the script and I thought it was a great character. The character's name is Garnet. He was in the National Guard and when the zombie apocalypse happened he and this group of people survived by living on an island.

They got this community where they were able to survive, they're surrounded by water and up to that point nothing bad has happened and when I first got there to set I asked the writer what is it about my character? Why is he so… He seems kind of religious, he seems kind of burned out and he said no he's not.

He's not like he's religious, he's just got hope. He's the one guy who has hope. And I was like wow that's amazing direction to go in. So basically that shaped my whole interpretation of the character. Every time that he was going to make a decision that I was like whoa why would he do that?

That's insane. I would never do that. I don't know because he's got hope. He's just got this like it trumps everything else. I'll do this.

If it means that we can save the human race I'm going to do it. That's how I kind of like… That's the trajectory I took. So Tom agrees with everybody else. Yeah it's the golden age of television but he also thinks there's a dark cloud around

it especially when it comes to the movie business. Interesting right? I mean because like in a way there's more opportunities in TV, there's more content, there's more programming needed but then they're making less movies. So I mean it's probably the same.

Because this is like coming on the heels of the age of reality television where nothing scripted was ever going to be made again and now we've got this boom of scripted television. Which as a TV fan it makes it really hard to like even digest all these shows. There's so many shows I haven't even seen that everyone says I gotta see. You would love it.

You of me. I hate when people single me out like that. You would love it. But I think it's great. I think it's taking that spot of like the 30 million dollar movie.

They don't really make it anymore. It's kind of like a bunch of little novels that you get to like read and if you really like them they'll make more. You know I just I don't know the 13 episode, 10 to 13 episode season of a cable show is just really I don't know some of them seem to be really interested in as viewers.

New episodes of C Nation every Friday on Sci-Fi and Seymour right now on Sci-Fi on Demand. Here's all the latest in pop culture. Well he may have a whole shelf full of Golden Globes and Emmys but Walter White is not too popular these days at Toys R Us. The toy retailer has quietly pulled the mezco toys breaking bad action figures from their

shelves and their online stores as well. It began with a Florida woman issued a petition through Change.org to have the toys removed saying that they weren't suitable for children. The Today Show picked up the story and Toys R Us decided the publicity wasn't just worth it at all.

The toys by the way have been available in stores since 2013 and are still purchasable from many online retailers. You might want to be aware of a new project from Warner Brothers called Blue Ribbon Content. It'll be a video short form service that will have some interesting material when it finally gets going including a new animated Mortal Kombat series and a live action series based

on the former milestone character static shock. There's a lot of other things planned as well. Look for Warner Brothers to make a major announcement about this sometime over the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile the WWE's animated series Slam City is now making the leap from the WWE network

to regular TV. Nickelodeon signed a deal with the company to air the series on Nicktoons Nick Sports Primetime Block starting this week. No big surprise that The Flash has got a full season order from The CW. The series has been the network's most watched debut ever with a little over 6 million viewers

in the live plus three day ratings. Also along with that Jane the Virgin another new series doing well for The CW also got a full season order and on the opposite side of that coin FX has decided not to renew the bridge for a new season. The second season ratings are not that spectacular so FX has passed on renewing it for a third

go round. And back again on the plus side Z Nation has been performing pretty good for the folks at Sci-Fi so they've given the go ahead for a second season of that series and it premieres sometime next year. Doctors the graphic novel written and drawn by Dash Shaw for fan of graphics books has

now been picked up by 20th Century Fox for a possible film attached to it the familiar name of David Goyer who we know of course from Man of Steel and Dark Knight and for his cable series like Da Vinci's Demons. Capitalizing on the hugely successful new series of American Horror Story Fox has given a straight to series order for another comedy horror anthology from Ryan Murphy.

This one is called Scream Queens it's known as and we're quoting here a gender bending concept that blends true horror with big comedic moments. It revolves around a college campus rocked by a series of murders and we should look for it sometime in the fall of 2015. Actor producer Mark Consuelos is geared up for a second season of the hit screaming comedy

Alpha House and this time Mark says to pay close attention to the plots because they're going to tie in very closely to the headlines. I mean we're releasing the show right before midterm elections midterm elections are a big plot point in season two of Alpha House and I think it's a little uncanny how Gary Trudeau the creator and the executive director of the show knows what's happening and what's

going to happen and that makes the last thing a lot more fun for the actors to be kind of part of this you know fiction but it's also being grabbed from the headlines. Alpha House debuted as a breakthrough hit in streaming and I asked Mark if as an actor he approached working in this medium any differently. No I mean it felt very much like an edgy cable show that you do.

The production value was there they spent a lot of money obviously when you're working with Gary Trudeau and John Goodman you know it's for real and the writing's great the crews are great you know and as an actor you know you you work you when you're doing a TV show you're always concerned or in the back of your mind you're worried about what night they're going to put you on the network or what your lead in is or what night you

know what what's opposite you against you like there's this big juggernaut called American Idol up against you on the same night that's a problem and even if you're a really really good show you might not find your audience and you there might be a lot of reasons why people are tuning in so with Amazon and you know other providers that are doing the streaming thing it's been really I think it was kind of a sigh of a sigh of relief for the actors

I can think of myself is that you know all you had to concentrate on was being good and doing good work and being invested in that and all the other stuff was completely taken out of the equation which I found you know like a breath of fresh air. Along with his wife Kelly Ripa Mark has a production company and a few interesting projects on the way.

We have a lot of stuff in development right now which is code for it's not picked up yet and we're like on the brink of that but we're extremely busy. I've been focusing a lot more on the acting side and doing a lot of that stuff and I'll tell you obviously he has her show in the morning but we find a great deal of pleasure off of producing and we have our fingers crossed on a few different projects.

As a producer how does Mark decide where to put his projects with all the different venues out there online, cable, Netflix and of course basic broadcast TV. Yeah no I think that when you would look at selling a project as a producer there was you know the standard there was the standard homes for it like when you're making a show for this like I who would be a good home for that and now with the advent of technology

and digital and streaming it's really opened up so many more possibilities for content and people are needing different forms of content for it. So I mean as a producer I think the game is wide open. For a number of years Mark was in front of the camera as an Emmy winning actor on All My Children and I asked Mark if he thinks the genre of soap operas is really over.

That's a great question I think they tried that with All My Children online. I think they ran into a few problems I'm not sure it was a content problem or a writing problem. I think they're trying to figure that out how that works with the unions and actors and acting unions and crews.

So you know there are still a few on network TV I know General Hospital is still on the air and I think Days of Our Lives and Young and the Restless and The Bold and Beautiful I think. You know I haven't been following that so much and they've stayed strong so I think there's definitely an audience for those shows.

I think to your point if people could watch it and stream it and maybe go back and archive and watch different stories that they like to watch like Luke and Laura or Susan Lucci storyline whatever back in the day I think that would be interesting for people. So I still think there's an audience I don't think they're dead I don't think it's dead I think they just need to figure out how they're going to what kind of landscape space they're

going to stay on and how they're going to survive. See Mark along with John Goodman in Alpha House all the episodes of season two available right now on Amazon Prime. That's it for now but I think you've got more than enough to entertain you over the weekend. Come back and join us again in a few days in all the usual places like ComicMix.com,

MichaelDavisWorld.com, GetThePointRadio.com and in the iTunes podcast directory. And want to know what we're up to? Well it's easy to follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook under The Point Radio. Have a good weekend, see you in a few days. GetThePointRadio.com