Kolchak: The Night Stalker

I just learned today that Darrin McGavin has passed on. Which is a real pity, because he was such a great actor.

I never met the man, much to my regret, but I am doing a little tribute here, because this is the first place I recall see this fine, talented actor. To this day, his portrayal of Karl Kolchak (I hope I spelled it right) is a favorite of my, and one of my favorite television shows from the 70s.

The show aired on Friday nights for one season. But it was never forgotten by fans, and fortunately the Sci-Fi Channel runs it occasionally.

The show had great writing, was extremely moody, and some really great monsters and scary situations. But the high point of the show each week was McGavin's performance. He played Karl as a guy who'd rather use his brains as opposed to brawn to get the job done. Often when he fought and defeated the monster, it was from what he'd learned earlier in the show, as opposed to just hacking and slashing his way through.

McGavin also had a real nice sense of comic timing that worked well when bantering words with is boss Tony Vinchenzo (Simon Oakland). The two of them together generated some really entertaining chemistry.

My favorite episode of the series was "Horror in the Heights" (aka: The Rakshaka). It had it all -- a great performance by McGavin, a really great monster that you didn't see until the end, and a really, really great shock ending. (No I won't spoil it for you folks who haven't seen it. But I strongly recommended it to anyone who hasn't. It's a real dilly.) Well, Darrin McGavin is gone now. But he leaves behind a nice little legacy. Many of us also remember him as "The Old Man" in that wonderful season film "A Christmas Story." But for me, he will always be, first and foremost, "Karl Kolchak, the Night Stalker."

I was just looking over the new series made for ABC TV. Good god. I was just contemplating what a new series would be like, and then I find it...and I guessed right; watered down, fancy boy crud.

The old series of Night Stalker was a zeitgeist, about being a regular guy, trying to find the truth, which was always hidden by authorities. Much like the times, it had a soul that went to the heart of public feelings, while working in the frame genre of horror/suspense. But, instead of writing to connect the public to their inner feelings about society wrapped in entertainment, the new series is about black and white working together, hot and fancy, to find less then archetypal mysteries. Kolchak brought a pulpy sense of reality to light, and portrayed the seedy side of life without being moralistic. It was Columbo of the supernatural. It didn't create fanciful immorality, like the goth culture today, and it didn't put searing political statements all over. It tried to entertain. And it did. Hence the popularity through the years. Anyone, like myself, who saw this in their childhood remembers it today.

The new series is destined to be another watered down bastardization of brilliant TV.

I was in junior high when this show premiered and I remember how funny and creepy it was. Darren McGavin, no matter what role he was in, was and still is, an excellent actor. He absolutely made the world weary Carl Kolchak believable. I loved the scenes with him and Simon Oakland as boss Tony Vincenzo. Kolchak always had a great comeback line when Vincenzo was outraged and appalled by Kolchak's supernatural interests. This show was cancelled way too soon, it was just hitting it's stride. Granted, some of the episodes were silly and the costumes (especially the Werewolf costume) were goofy, but some of the episodes were really scary and extremely well written. I wish they had made more of the episodes. My personal favorite is "Horror in the Heights", this one combined horror with social commentary about antisemitism and the plight of poor senior citizens. Ahead of it's time. If you are young and have never seen any of these wonderful shows, go to Ebay or Amazon and you can buy them. Well worth the money.

I grew up being mesmerized by Kolchak and his witty, interesting, sometimes bumbling reporting style that dug up the goods on the city's night time other-world bad guys (and gals). I haven't seen but one or two episodes since I watched the originals in the 70s and would love to see them again. I might have to break down and actually buy the videos of the shows. Also, I hear ABC is going to remake the series and show it in the fall (2005). Not sure how it's going to go over and if they're going to capture that 70s atmosphere. If they don't have Darren McGavin in there or someone as superb and funny as he was/is, I'm not sure if the show will go over like it did when I was a youngster. That, and they'll be competing with all the latest gizmo-loaded, hi-tech, sci-fi shows and movies that have sprung up over the past few years. I won't go into detail about any of the episodes since other commenters have done so very eloquently. Just suffice it to say that you'll either love this series or not, but I'm betting that you'll love it.

Kolchak was vastly under-appreciated in its day. In fact, I don't think I knew anyone else that watched the show in its first run - or at least would admit to watching it. Canceled after only twenty episodes in a Friday night time slot, it was pretty much forgotten until twenty years later when its basic format became the inspiration for the X-Files. Kolchak was a reporter on the trail of the supernatural. Like murders following Jessica Fletcher in "Murder She Wrote", the stories would sometimes find Kolchak rather than Kolchak always chasing the story. What made this series different from TV shows prior to it was that the government was shown to be suppressing attempts by Kolchak to get at the truth in just about every instance. This was a first in TV shows, and is possibly attributable to the fact that this show premiered about a month after Watergate blew wide open and the president was forced to resign. Although there are many similarities between this show and The X-Files, Carl Kolchak was no Fox Mulder in appearance or style. Like Peter Falk's Columbo, Kolchak wore crumpled attire and had an annoying way about him, but he did get results. Also, each episode of Kolchak was pretty much self-contained. There was no long-running story arc, such as Mulder's search for the truth in what he believed to be the alien abduction of his sister driving him to look for proof of alien existence. If you like shows about the supernatural and you can handle a little 1970's nostalgia and some cheesy special effects, I advise you give this series a try if you ever run across it.