Season 6, Episode 13—Kolchak: The Night Stalker (TV Series)
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
CC BY-NC 4.0 – Deed
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 – Deed
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 – Deed
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 – Deed
Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a series that lasted only one season, the 1974-75 season. Just 20 episodes. Troy and David look at the series, its pilot episode and others, and briefly talk about the two made for TV movies that preceded the TV series: The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler. The TV series, and the two TV movies, influenced a generation of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror fans, including Chris Carter, who brought us The X-Files.
Here is the cast (and the description we used in the episode):
Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak, 20 episodes.
The intrepid investigative reporter. McGavin had a long career in film and television working steadily from the 1940s onward. Other than Kolchak he is remembered for his roles in The Natural, A Christmas Story, Millennium and The X-Files.
Simon Oakland as Tony Vincenzo, 20 episodes.
Kolchak’s crotchety ulcer-ridden editor. Oakland appeared on both The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. He was also in Hitchcock’s Psycho, and West Side Story.
Jack Grinnage as Ron Updyke, 18 episodes.
Another journalist at INS (Carl sometimes calls him “Uptight” instead of Updyke. Updyke looks A LOT like Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, doesn’t he? Although this was his biggest recurring role, Grinnage also appeared in Rebel Without A Cause, the Elvis film Kid Creole, as well as on The Twilight Zone.
Ruth McDevitt as Emily Cowles, 12 episodes.
Although Ruth McDevitt was born in 1895 (!!!) her first on-screen role did not come until 1949. Among her long list of film and TV roles, McDevitt appeared in The Birds, The Shakiest Gun in the West, Mame, and on Room 222, Kojack, McCloud and Gunsmoke, before going on to Kolchak: The Night Stalker. She passed away in 1975 at the age of 80.
The TV Series had a stellar list of Guest Stars, including:
Carolyn Jones, Scatman Crothers, Phil Silvers, Stella Stevens, Jim Backus, Jamie Farr, Antonio Fargus, Tom Skerrit, Kathy Lee Crosby and Tom Bosley.
Troy and David present their, “How it all ends”, by coming up with an ending to the show, as if the show, like MASH, knew it was ending, and had time to be able to end it properly, wrap everything (or most things) up.