The Point Radio: Jack Coleman And The World Of HEROES

As “HRG”,  Jack Coleman has been an important of the HEROES TV mythology from day one. Now, he talks about HEROES REBORN and what lies ahead for the NBC limited series. Plus Josh Gates is a curious guy and he makes that work for him in his show, EXPEDITION UNKNOWN. Did you know Robin Hood was real? Josh has proved it and much more!

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Transcript

The Point Radio It's Mike Raub, direct from Heroes Reborn HRG. Jack Coleman has longed to talk about what's ahead for the rest of the miniseries. Plus, Expedition Unknown is the show and Josh Gates is the guy behind it, who proves that some of the legends we know are real.

For example, Robin Hood. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.

They call him HRG. He's actor Jack Coleman who's been an integral part of Heroes on NBC in both the original incarnation and the new series Heroes Reborn, in which he's real quick to point out is not necessarily a reboot. Because we pick up in real time five years later, so a lot has changed in the world and

a lot has changed in the lives of the characters that we knew and we're spending a lot of time with entirely new characters. So yeah, it's a whole new world. Heroes Reborn gives us a new look at some old friends. Yes, there are familiar faces and Episode 7 and Episode 8, which we're into now, bring

back a lot of those characters and reveal a lot of all the, you know, there's been a lot of questions, a lot of mystery and all those things get answered in these next two episodes. So these are really, these are big episodes for the show and I think it's going to be really rewarding for the audience and especially the audience that was a fan of the original

show because it's, you know, you get to see a lot of the old faces and familiar faces and I think people are going to really enjoy it. So is this current miniseries the same as the original or have they taken a whole different direction? You know, it's a little of both.

It's undeniably Heroes. You know you're on the Heroes set because first of all it takes forever to shoot an episode and we're shooting all over the place. We've been to Paris and Jordan and Iceland and, you know, East LA, Toronto, we're all over the place.

So it's worldwide. It definitely feels like Heroes, but it's a whole new generation. It's a new cast. The fact that we're shooting in Toronto and not in LA makes a big difference just the way in how the show feels.

It's, you know, I think people would be shocked if they came to the set to just see how big a production this is. It's a beast. Jack's been along for virtually every episode of the series, but originally that wasn't the plan.

In fact, his character was, well, to be kind of short lived. Yes, it was. You know, the character as originally written was, they called him a man in horn-rimmed glasses and every man but unknowable. And that was Tim's description of him.

And then they realized that this guy really can function. And I realized it too, just reading the script, that they look at the, he's not in much in this pilot, but at the very end, he turns out to be the father of the cheerleader and I was like, come on, that's gotta, that's gotta have some legs. There's gotta be some life in there.

So I just imagined it as a, you know, as a nice recurring character. And then they started building it up more and more, which was, you know, much to my delight. And then they realized this guy can really operate on so many different levels and he knows more than a lot of the, these people with powers know about themselves and he represents

this company. And I started out as the face of evil and then they made him a really good father who's just protecting his daughter. And so, you know, it just had to, took on this whole life that I don't think anybody had anticipated from the beginning.

So in the time between the original series and Heroes Reborn, did Jack believe that they could ever get back together again? I, my feeling was the first year or so after it ended, I kind of expected there to be some kind of wrap up, um, that there would, they would do maybe, you know, six parts or something and, and, and sort of tell the story and wrap it up.

I didn't expect, uh, I, I didn't expect anything much after that. Once, once a year had passed, I kind of thought, all right, well, you know, it's, it's, it's over. Um, so when it did come back, you know, we were all shocked. They ran an ad during the winter Olympics last year and nobody had heard anything about

it. And there was no script yet. They didn't really have a story. They just knew that they were going to do it. So, uh, when that happened, it was, it was kind of, you know, shocking to all of us.

And, uh, and then I got, you know, a call from Tim saying, we'd like you to, we'd like you to come back. And, um, and I was thrilled to do so. A lot with those roles, Jack's been a familiar face in a lot of different TV series and asking me if there's any of those roles he'd like to revisit.

I would say, you know, the recurring characters I've had, um, a lot of them are post, um, post heroes, like they're from scandal and burn notice and castle and vampire diaries and the office. Um, you know, all of them were, were a lot of fun. I would have loved to have seen what happened had, uh, in my character on scandal, been

able to stick around a little bit longer and not take a letter opener in the back, um, uh, from his wife. But, uh, that, that, that's one that I would have, I would have liked to have continued to revisit and, um, uh, and, and also, you know, the Senator Lippincott from the office was just such a, such a dork and such a, a goofball that that was, um, that was incredibly

fun to play. And I, I would have been happy to continue to do that. Heroes reborn with new episodes every Thursday on NBC and catch up right now on Hulu. Big bucks for Candy Crush. That's just part of what's going on right now in pop culture.

Despite the fact that could have been a huge holiday sale, Disney's decided to take the high road with the novelization of the force awakens and not release it until early January. This keeps some of the surprises on the big screen for at least as long as possible and through the holiday season as well. The ebook version will be available online though on December 18th.

And of course there's plenty of other star wars merchandise already to go under the tree sometime over the next couple of months. Even before all the ratings were tabulated, stars has shown its faith in Ash versus Evil Dead and renewed the series for a second season. Those episodes will be set to run on the network in 2016.

Meanwhile over on Netflix, they've renewed the Western drama Longmire for season five. Season four debuted on the streaming service in September. Hulu has set a date for the release of the Stephen King novel, 11, 22 63, the nine hour mini series, which stars James Franco will debut on president's day. February 15th, 2016 episodes will come every week after that.

More good news from TV land. The Walking Dead has been renewed for yet another season. Season seven will begin next year on the network. It is the number one show on television among the 18 to 49 year old demographic and the Muppets have had their stay extended.

ABC is giving the show an additional three episodes, which brings the total of this season up to 16. The combined forces of ABC family, ABC studios and ABC signature have put together a two year deal with Mick G that will have him produce some scripted drama and comedy series and digital content to for the studios.

His shadow hunters series is slated to premiere on ABC family coming up early in 2016. In brief gaming news, the folks at Activision Blizzard spent a little money this week. Five point nine million dollars to be exact. And what did they buy? A huge mobile franchise, Candy Crush.

No word on exactly what this means or what kind of expansion they're planning, but there should be some announcements well before the end of the year. Being one of the most successful news series of the current TV season certainly has its perks, at least it does for Blindspot. NBC has given them yet another episode bringing the total for the series up to 23 full for

the first season. And speaking of success stories, Andrew Kreisberg is inked to deal with Warner Brothers television that will make him involved with all their projects. He'll be executive producer on Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. He'll be the show runner for The Flesh and the co-show runner for the CBS series Supergirl.

All right, pop quiz for you. Robin Hood and King Arthur. Are they legends or are they real? Well, the best answer to that is held with a guy named Josh Cates who has a hit series on the Travel Channel called Expedition Unknown.

Well, we are a weekly one hour travel adventure show and really the heart of the show is about investigating legends and myths around the world. So I go and investigate things like, you know, vanished treasures and lost cities and missing explorers, all these really cool stories. And go to places where archaeologists and scientists are making real discoveries in

these cases. So we're basically going there and putting boots on the ground and having a real expedition. So was Josh always curious? Yeah, I mean, I definitely was that kind of a kid. I think I wore out a VHS copy of Platoon 8's and Greater's the Lost Ark, you know, before

I was 10. But I loved all that stuff. And actually, I think that most people are really into these kinds of stories. So these are the kind of stories that we hear and our ears kind of prick up because it's just cool, you know, like we're doing a story this season on a lost city in the Kalahari

Desert, you know, that this explorer saw and was swallowed up by the sands and nobody's been able to find it since, you know, it's like the stuff of a Hollywood movie, you know, it's just really cool stories that get great natural hooks. So how does Josh approach finding out if these legends really do exist? Well, look, you know, what we want to do, I think, first and foremost is go to a place

where there are real advances and breakthroughs being made. You know, we don't want to go do a story on dragons, you know, if nobody's seen a dragon, you know, knocking around their neighborhood. So we're looking for places in the world where there are discoveries happening. And so that means that we're not just telling these old, you know, stories you've heard

before. We're actually going and making these discoveries and then being on the scene when new things are being found that really move the story forward. So I think for us, that's the most important indicator is, is it something that has something new going on?

Right now, it's a new season of Expedition Unknown. And Josh told me what's coming up. For sure. We're doing a really cool episode on Robin Hood. You know, this is a character that everybody knows.

And if you asked 100 people on the street, who is Robin Hood, I think all 100 would probably have an answer for you. And yet most of us, myself included, can't really answer a really simple question, which is, is this a real guy? And it turns out that there is work being done trying to figure out the history of this.

And is there a real Robin Hood? Is there a Prince of Thieves who stole from the rich he gave to the poor? So that's a really cool upcoming episode that actually has some really kind of surprising results that, you know, this may not be the guy that we picture in our minds. We're doing a great story on the sunken ruin off the coast of Japan called the Yannaguni

ruins. This is this underwater kind of rock structure that many people believe and have believed for a long time. It's a kind of ruin of a sort of temple that that's submerged beneath the waves off Japan. And a whole other can of people says, no, no, no, this is just a geological formation.

It's really weird. It's really strange, but it's natural. So there's this great fight going on between these two groups. And so we're going to go there, get in the water, investigate these ruins and see if we can, you know, give our own opinion at the very least, but also document the work

that's being done as to whether this is this kind of Japanese Atlantis. We're doing stories on the cross of Jesus Christ, where we're looking into missing gold stolen by the Nazis in World War Two. So it's really, you know, exciting stuff coming up. So of all the cases he's investigated, is there one that stood out as his favorite?

Well, you know, there's a two part episode that we're doing this season that has an air get it all air towards the end of the year on Christopher Columbus. And when we started this, I sort of thought, oh, man, I don't know about this, but this is just to be kind of a dry history lesson on this guy. And it turns out that it's actually, I think the most fascinating story that you've done

yet. You know, this is another character that we're all familiar with. And yet the real story of Columbus reads like a Hollywood thriller. I mean, he's a really mysterious, strange character that I think most of us don't know anything about, even though we all were taught about him, we all learned about him.

And what do we really know? We know that he sailed across the ocean in 1492. That's about it. In fact, he had this really incredible life. And he's a really kind of puzzling character.

You know, is he a hero? Is he a villain? And does he deserve to be remembered a certain way? And there's some amazing mysteries around his life. His flagship, the Santa Maria, was lost off the coast of Haiti on his first voyage.

And there's now reports that it may have been found, but it's a very controversial find. And also there's a real disagreement about where Columbus is buried. Two different countries claim to have his bones. So there's a really interesting kind of battle going on, a DNA battle really, between these two countries.

So for me, that turned out to be one of the most amazing stories because it just involves such an iconic character. Crash continues to explore some pretty fascinating things on Expedition Unknown, new episodes every Wednesday on The Travel Channel. See more too at TravelChannel.com.

That's a wrap for the podcast right now, but there's always a lot going on. And we cover it with a point preview exclusive video for you and GetThePointRadio.com and with a pop culture upload heard on great radio stations all over the world. The podcast turns up on websites like ComicMix.com and popcultureupload.com as well as Get The Point Radio.

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