The Point Radio: The Frighteningly Real World Of HUNTERS

The new SyFy series HUNTERS has some interesting similarities to the terrorist threats we all face in the real world. Series star, Britne Oldford talks about that and why the series has some of the most realistic bad guys on TV. Then it’s reality TV competition comedy-style. Damian Lemon talks about the new, no holds barred COMEDY KNOCKOUT.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. Well, it might be science fiction, but the new show Hunters has some terrifying reality to it, and the star of the show explains just what that is. And a comedy knockout gives comedians a chance to be the king of comedy, but somebody's got

to lose, too. We'll go backstage to check out the competition. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. A secret government unit hunting down terrorists. Real life or science fiction? In this case, there's a new series on sci-fi called Hunters. And actress Brittany Oldford told me all about the premise.

Yeah, the premise of the show, it's really based on this guy, Flynn Carroll, who's on this journey to look to find his wife, and he stumbled upon an underground special task force of the government called the Exeterism Unit. And along the way, he joins, and everyone's really working together to find these terrorists. And the terrorists, believe it or not, are aliens, and they're called hunters.

So where does she fit in? Yeah, I play Allison Regan, and she herself is a hunter, which is why she's one of the most valuable operatives at this underground unit. And she's just trying to go along, figure out where she belongs, who she is, and fight against her own kind.

Again, there's a lot of connections here between the terrorism we face on a day-to-day basis in the real world and what we see on the show. And that correlation is exactly what drew Brittany to the part. Definitely. I think the whole show episode by episode is very ingrained in what we're doing here.

And it's not only about terrorism or an allegory for what's going on with regards to that in the world, but it's really about the other. It's about the unknown. It's about the fear of the unknown and how far you're willing to go to fight for what you think is right.

Part of what makes the show work is the realism that was used to create the alien hunters. Definitely. I think having the more information, the better, really, especially for something that can be as complex as science fiction or fantasy, where there's this whole other world that you're exploring and discussing and playing in.

And it's made it such a treat. And I'd like to say it made it easier. You know, the subject matter is definitely quite heavy and intense at times. But it really did, because you know you have someone there who created this whole world who you can talk to and rely on and who can steer you in the right direction, which you

don't necessarily get on every project. And she was out there in Australia with us for the full five months we were filming. So it was really amazing. It was definitely a blessing. Britney's acting resume includes parts on American Horror Story and Flesh.

So originally did she plan to head into this genre of acting? It's funny because I kind of weirdly stumbled upon this genre. Not that I wouldn't have loved to be in it, because it's what I grew up on. I grew up on science fiction and fantasy and magic and all of the weird. So for me, it's a really it's a happy place.

It's a very comfortable place for me. And what I'm drawn to, it wasn't necessarily thinking, oh, well, this is the subject matter. This is the genre of the project, which of course is a bonus for me. But it's more so that the characters that I played in the genre and granted I've had a good fortune in being able to play strong female characters in general.

But I find that it's a lot easier and more digestible for viewers to see a very strong, assertive, independent, intelligent female character under one of these umbrellas of, let's say, fantasy or science fiction or so on. And what I love about it is then those little girls see it and they watch it. Well, not necessarily this show, but and are inspired and are like, oh, wait a minute.

I can be super badass too. I can be really awesome too. And Gaylen Hurd and Natalie are both amazing at doing that and creating those worlds for those people. So, you know, it really watching those shows and those movies, Terminator Aliens, specifically, are really what motivated me to want to do this.

So will you give her any dream role, anything she would ever like to do in movies or television? What would it be? Oh, my gosh. Can I say everything? I can't say everything, can I?

You can say whatever you'd like. Well, aside from anything that has ever popped into my head, I would absolutely love to play in the world of magic. That would be – it's a dream of mine. And yeah, I think I'd say that. I think playing in the world of magic in some respects would probably be a golden ticket worthy in my book.

So what's Britney's pop culture comfort zone? What are the TV shows and movies that she always loves the most? Oh, that's such a good question. Gosh, I have so many. I'd probably say, you know what?

I'll say the original Star Wars. I'm a big Star Wars buff and episodes four, five and six are the first live action films that I remember seeing as a child. So those are definitely – those are big ones for me. There's new episodes of Hunters every Monday, only on Sci-Fi. Fox is skipping Paul H.

That's just part of what's going on in the world of pop culture. Well, in case you keep a track of these things, Spider-Man Deadpool number one has gone to printing number five. The successful series has pretty much had a great run all along. Number two has gone to a fourth printing. Number three has a third printing.

And number four has a second printing of the series, all done by Joe Kelly and Ed McGinnis. Different covers on each. Check with your retailer to make sure you get the ones you want. It's official. Pamela Anderson will be part of the new Baywatch reboot.

Dwayne The Rock Johnson tweeted a photo of the two of them that confirmed this a couple of days ago. Anderson joins Johnson and Zac Efron in the reboot, which will be in theaters May 19th of next year. Fox has pulled the plug on. Famous The Half Hour Comedy was created by writer-producer Ralph Farquhar from The Real Husbands of Hollywood. Originally, the network gave the series a 10 episode order and it was slated to be released in June.

If you're a fan of the film Love Actually, this might seem a little familiar. Hello, Goodbye is a new series that captures moments as everyday people arrive and depart from some of the largest airports in America. It's new to the Travel Channel with premiere episodes coming up on Monday, May the 9th at 11 and 11 30 as produced by Ellen DeGeneres's production company. Listen First has released another run at the top 10 most talked about television shows on social media. These are the ones that are hashtag the most on Facebook, Google Plus and Tumblr as well as search for on Wikipedia.

The 10 include Lucifer, Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, The Walking Dead, Vikings, The Flash that are called Saul, Supernatural. And at the top, the number two show Shadowhunters from Freeform and number one HBO's Game of Thrones. There's a chance that Hall H might be a little quieter this year's Comic Con. Fox has announced they will not be bringing any film programming to the venue at Comic Con this year. All because of concerns that footage shown to the crowd of the hall will make its way online before the studio really wants it to.

Last year Deadpool and X-Men Apocalypse material made it online fairly quickly and well before the time that Fox's promotional people had planned. Meanwhile Comic Con itself promises that they're taking steps this year to stop any reported leaks from any of the studios who are attending the show. By the end of the year Dreamworks Animation will be part of NBC Universal. It's all on a $3.8 billion dollar transaction that's expected to be done well before the New Year's bell rings into 2017. The studio will become part of the brand that also includes Universal Pictures, Fandango and of course NBC Universal Development.

Alec Baldwin is back in a 10 episode primetime edition of Match Game. The reboot is part of a Sunday fun and games night being kicked off on ABC. In just a few weeks already part of the lineup will be the $100,000 pyramid with Michael Strahan and Celebrity Family Feud with Steve Harvey. Debut is set for late June on ABC. Reality TV has given us all sorts of competition shows.

Now there's one for comedy. Seasoned comedians battle for comedy supremacy in TruTV's new show Comedy Knockout. Front band Damian Lemmon explains. We set them up with various games to play in little roast competitions. And what happens is, you know, the first actually the second round one comedian is is eliminated.

First, let me just say this. We have a live studio award is that that plays our judges. So you get judged Apollo style by the crowd reaction. So our first elimination, the first elimination that the crowd votes off of television actually has to go sit in the crowd with the same people that vote. The most television.

So that's always fun. And from there and after that we got a head to head battle and the winner of that becomes the comedy knockout champion. And the loser unfortunately has to read a pre written apology for being terrible at comedy. So what kind of stuff do these guys have to face? Various games.

We got a game on there called, you know, let's see who bought it, which is a play off of the whole Etsy site online. You know, the site where there's all the weird crafts and things of that nature. And there's just some weird things on there. If you really scowled it, if you know the Internet, you know, there's a lot of that's where weird lifts. So there's some weird things on let's see and we'll pull them up.

And what we want them to do is just come, you know, kind of let us know who they think bought it. And whoever has the funniest, you know, the funniest joke, funniest response, they went over the crowd. All right. So Damien's a comedian in his own right. And that's a passion that started pretty early for him.

You know what? I've been funny since I was about nine. That's when I started to realize I can make people laugh. You know what I mean? Like, that's when I really got into it.

I learned how to distract and disrupt the classroom. You know what I mean? Like, I knew how to, you know, steal the show from my teachers, you know, things like that. And I figured, you know what, let me see where this could go. I didn't really consider comedy as an occupation till probably later on right around college time.

And then I eventually got to it maybe 10 years ago. Went to Open Mic in New York City right there in the village, South Comedy Hall. And I did five minutes. And I guess the material was good enough to keep me doing it. And here I am 10 years later.

Who helped inspire him into biz? The biggest impressions made on me was Eddie Murphy. You know, Delirious was probably one of my – that's still one of my favorite comedy specials of all time. Delirious was crazy. Who else did I like?

I like Carlin. I like Chris Rock a lot. Who else? I mean, loved Martin. I'm trying to figure just people that don't get shouted at a lot.

I used to like Leno back in the day when he was doing stand-up. I thought he was funny. You know, Chappelle. You know, it's a long, long list of people that have inspired me. One of Damian's biggest accomplishments and a hidden gem that you got to check out is something called D-Lemon in the Morning.

Oh, man, thanks a lot, Mike. The web series D-Lemon in the Morning, it was inspired by Morning Radio and Larry Sanders, actually. Wow. It was inspired by a morning radio show called The Breakfast Club, actually, in particular. It's just something that I saw.

I'm not sure if we could say another name of a show. So if we want to go morning radio, we go morning radio. But it was inspired by that and Larry Sanders. It was inspired by, I've always been a fan of radio, you know. It's just the fact that you guys got to talk about the events of the day every day, you know.

You got to fill that time. You got to talk to those people. And that's a challenge, you know, as you kind of got to editorialize everything that's going on out there. And I salute that. I've always been listening to radio.

And then the Larry Sanders element is just like a show about a show, you know. So the behind the scenes, you know, what you don't see. And I just thought that was cool. And I wanted to apply it to, you know, hip-hop culture, use it as a way to kind of satirize things that were going on. And we had a great time.

But if you look at that show, there's a lot of people that are popping now that were on that web service. So, yeah, check it out. D-Lemon in the Morning, if you've never seen it. Once again, head to the YouTube for D-Lemon in the Morning. And for new episodes of Comedy Knockout, they turn up every Thursday on TruTV.

As if at the podcast, but we're back at all the usual places in a few days. And when we do come back, we're going to look at the return of persons of interest. Just a few episodes remain in the life of this long-running TV hit. And we'll talk to the stars and the creators about how that all works out for them. You'll find us on websites like ComicMix.com, TVTrekNews.com, and of course in the iTunes podcast directory, plus PopCultureUpload.com.

Follow us on Twitter under PC upload and on Facebook under PopCulture Upload. See you back here in a few days. Get the point, radio.com! You