NIGHT STALKER Starts Hunt Soon

By: News Editor
Date: Thursday, September 22, 2005
Source: Various

NIGHT STALKER premieres on September 29th at 9pm on ABC, and thus crime reporter Carl Kolchak will once again be back in action.

The new series stars Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak. As the show kicks off a pregnant woman is kidnapped from her home and the city of Los Angeles believes it's an act of domestic violence. But Kolchak suspects that the truth is far more complicated, because eighteen years earlier his wife was killed in a bizarre fashion -- and he has been the FBI's No. 1 suspect ever since. Kolchak's determination to find the truth behind his wife's mysterious murder has led him to investigate other crimes that seem to have some kind of supernatural component.

NIGHT STALKER also stars Gabrielle Union, Eric Jungmann, Cotter Smith, David Denman, Ele Keats, J. Marvin Campbell, Timothy McNeil, Clay Wilcox, Sarah LaFleur, Madeline Carroll, John Pyper Ferguson, and Susan Misner.

The new program is "inspired" by the 70's series, created by Jeff Rice, which starred Darren McGavin (as Kolchak), Simon Oakland, Jack Grinnage, and Ruth McDevitt. KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER was one of the first series that David Chase (creator of the SOPRANOS) worked on as a staff writer. The program was also the launching pad for the careers of director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale. KOLCHAK's twenty episodes ran from September 13, 1974 until August 30, 1975.

In an interview executive producer Frank Spotnitz said in preparation for doing the show he "re-read the Night Stalker paperback by Jeff Rice, watched NIGHT STALKER and NIGHT STRANGLER again on DVD, and watched a bunch of the old TV episodes, more to help me figure out what I shouldn't do than what I should (this series is not a remake of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER to which �as I understand it -- ABC doesn't hold the rights)."

Click here to visit the official site.

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Comments/Responses

• Sep 22, 2005, 06:47am •

I'll watch it just to stare at Gabrielle Union. I've heard no buzz on this show. I wonder why.

• Sep 22, 2005, 09:31am •

Everything I've read about the show gives me a grim feeling for its future. I loved the original when I was a kid, and I still love watching the pilot now and again. When Kolchak is hiding in the closet and sees the vampire while peeking through the door's opening...that scared me when I was a kid. From what I can gather, the new Kolchak is nothing like the original (sadly), but I'll probably watch a couple episodes to give it a chance.

lracors • Sep 22, 2005, 09:55am •

One of the coolest aspects of the original show was the great verbal debates between Carl and his boss. Darren McGavin was wonderful with his quirkey energy PLUS the fact that he was as scared as everyone else in dealing with the unknown. He was the everyman, who just got lucky... damn lucky because he managed to keep an open mind.

In Call of Cthulhu he would be one of the perfect investigators... with a huge emphasis on being really really lucky with dice rolls.

I hear that this new series is pretty humorless... that won't help and I fear for it's future.

• Sep 22, 2005, 10:30am •

Some clarifications:

>because eighteen earlier his wife was killed in a
>bizarre fashion

WTF on the typo, and if it was meant to be "years", WTF again, because Stuart Townsend's character was just hitting puberty 18 years ago.

Jeff Rice didn't create the original made-for-TV movie, THE NIGHT STALKER. He wrote the unpublished novel that the movie was based on. And as stated, it wasn't a mini-series. The producers basically cloned the first movie, THE NIGHT STRANGLER.

THE NIGHT STRANGLER got made because the first movie was, and still is, one of the most popular TV movies ever. The second movie wasn't as memorable as the first.

I'm looking forward to buying KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER on DVD when it comes out in two weeks. The movies and the series accomplished something that no other genre series had to-date... it entertained without preaching to you. The Twilight Zone, Star Trek... great genre series, but the story telling sometimes suffered from the cultural commentary.

KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER failed to take because it was ahead of its time and lacked continuity. Chris Carter never forgot the movies and the show, and it inspired him to create The X-Files, which arrived on the scene just as our culture was waking up to post-modernism.

And let's face it, Darren McGavin was the perfect the newspaper report, crusty, driven, and engaged despite his scepticism.

I have a lot of respect for Frank Spotnitz. The Lone Gunmen, as a Fix Friday Night Failure, never got a fair despite being an excellent bit of television.

I'm willing to give the new series a chance, but with the explosion of genre TV this year, it needs to proves its chops quickly.

One thing that it has going for it, is that it isn't on Fox.

• Sep 22, 2005, 10:51am •

Scariest scene ever in the original was when Kolchak was sewing the zombie's lips shut in the junkyard and the zombie's eyes pop open! Of course, I was like 8 years old, so a lot is scary. The Rakshasa episode scared the pee outte me too...

• Sep 22, 2005, 10:53am •

The new series doesn't have that Kolchak/Tony relationship and it's a shame. I loved when Tony would yell from his office "KOLCHAK!" and Carl would grab his hat and scurry for the door. Paul Sorvino would probably make a great new Tony if he had a great Kolchak to play off of.

• Sep 22, 2005, 01:26pm •

Nowadays, Tony would have to reprimand Carl for being politically incorrect and would send him to cultural sensitivity.

"KOLCHAK! You just don't pour salt on a woman, and you damn sure don't accuse her of being a witch. You might offend someone with this behavior."

snallygaster • Sep 22, 2005, 03:02pm •

I'll give it a try, but it Stuart Townsend seems miscast. It also sounds like Kolchak's backstory is a bit too grim (does every character on TV these days need a grim backstory?). Some early reviews I've seen do not make it look promising. I think somebody like William H. Macy would have been a good Kolchak - older and able to play some lighter comedy among the horror (yeah, I know - too old for the demo the network wants). The scariest original episode for me was the Rakshasa - seeing Carl shoot a crossbow bolt into the grandmotherly Miss Emily was really shocking back then! My favorite comedic moment: Carl using an electric shaver to simulate a bad phone line when he really didn't want to talk to Tony - and Tony calling the bluff.

• Sep 22, 2005, 05:42pm •

I loved the movie the show was spun off from. It was done by Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows), but I was a little disappionted by the series. It was OK, but after a while it got kind of repetitive, which is probably why it didn't last long. I don't have much hope for the new one. Part of the charm of the original was McGavin's portrayal of Kolchak as a somewhat bumbling, inept loser who somehow always came out on top. Stuart Townsend doesn't quite fit the mold.
...and I'm thankful Peter Jackson dropped him in favor of Viggo for the role of Aaragorn. Can't imagine anyone else in that role (just thought I'd throw that in).

• Sep 23, 2005, 05:53am •

I think what we've learned today is that remakes stink. Come up with something that at least pretends to be original. No more Kojack and no more Kolchak

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