Kolchak: The Night Stalker
“A hard-bitten reporter with a nose for news and an open mind.”
About
Kolchak: The Night Stalker is an American television series that aired on ABC during the 1974–1975 season. It featured a fictional Chicago newspaper reporter who investigated mysterious crimes with unlikely causes, particularly those that law enforcement authorities would not follow up. These often involved the supernatural or even science fiction, including fantastic creatures.
Cast
Darren McGavin
as Carl Kolchak
Simon Oakland
as Tony Vincenzo
Jack Grinnage
as Ron Updyke
Episodes
Season 1
The Ripper
A serial killer who preys on women haunts Chicago, and Kolchak comes to believe that the killer is in fact the original Jack the Ripper, a seemingly immortal killer who has killed women in many cities over the last century. The reporter must track the killer to the old house where he has taken up residence and put an end to his existence once and for all.
The Zombie
A voodoo priestess animates her dead son to take revenge on the gangsters that killed him.
They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...
A bizarre alien presence invisibly sweeps through Chicago, killing a petty thief and a UFO nut. The alien or aliens have the strength of a hurricane, generate a massive electromagnetic field, steal lead and electronic equipment, and suck the bone marrow out of humans and animals alike. Kolchak must track the alien(s) from an electronics warehouse to an observatory to Lincoln Park and drive them off before they kill again. His camera seems to hold the key to the creatures' weakness, although initially Carl is wrong in guessing what the weakness is. Carl follows the aliens and manages to keep them from feeding on him before they depart once and for all.
The Vampire
Catherine Rawlins, a female victim of Janos Skorzeny (the vampire from the original Night Stalker TV movie) is accidentally resurrected outside Las Vegas, and makes her way to Los Angeles. She takes up her old profession of call girl and Carl wrangles an assignment there to investigate.
The Werewolf
Bernhardt Stieglitz, a NATO soldier bitten by a wolf, leaves a string of murder victims behind him. When Vincenzo is forced to abort his long-awaited vacation and report on the last cruise of an ocean liner, the USS Hanover, Carl takes his place, only to find that Stieglitz is one of the passengers on board...and the full moon is rising. Trapped aboard the liner, Kolchak must use a shotgun and silver buckshot to kill the creature once and for all.
Firefall
A series of mysterious deaths plague the life of conductor Ryder Bond. In each case, the victim is incinerated by supernaturally hot flames. As Kolchak investigates, he finds out that an arsonist, Frankie Markoff, was a fan of Bond's, and was killed in a penny arcade. His funeral procession crossed Bond's car, allowing the spirit to become a ""doppelganger"" and try to take over Bond's life. Each victim was burned to death when they fell asleep, and if Bond goes to sleep the doppelganger will take him over for good. Fighting sleep himself, Kolchak must exhume Markoff's body and reunite it with his restless spirit before he too bursts into flame.
The Devil's Platform
Kolchak discovers a young rising politician, has made a deal with the Devil to murder off his competition through incidents made to look like accidents.
Bad Medicine
A series of suicides among high-society matrons coincides with a bizarre jewel theft by a towering Indian who mysteriously disappears when cornered. Kolchak investigates and finds that the Indian is a ""diablero,"" a cursed cliff-dwelling Indian medicine man condemned to walk the earth gathering an eternal horde of jewels. The diablero can change shape into the form of a coyote or crow, and hypnotize anyone with its eyes. Carl must seek the diablero in the highest place he can find, and turn the power of its eyes against it.
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