Discussion of 1.01 "Pilot" - 9/29/05 (ABC-US)

[Vilandra]

Carl Kolchak takes a job at the L.A. Beacon as a crime reporter and begins investigating a strange case in which a pregnant woman has gone missing. When her body is found fingers point to the woman's husband, but Kolchak believes in the man's innocence, believing that there is a supernatural angle to the story. His investigations are frustrated when Perri Reed, the newspaper's senior crime reporter, digs into Kolchak's mysterious past.

Source: TV.com (http://www.tv.com/night-stalker/show/33125/episode_guide.html)

[Old Master]

Well *yee* to the *hah*....looks like I'm first. :D

Just finished watching tonight's premiere eppy. Ya know, going into this viewing I REALLY wanted to dislike this show. I am a big fan of the original "Kolchak" movies and the subsequent...albeit shortlived...series. Watched those religiously as a kid. To me, nobody can be Kolchak. Darren McGavin was it. So you can understand my disgust when this project was announced. How could They possibly recapture the old flava, I asked? And the casting choice for the new Carl Kolchak had us diehards reeling. Stuart friggin' Townsend???? No offense to Townsend fans, I like him too....but to be Kolchak? Uh uh.

But, with that being said, I was willing to give this show a chance, just to be fair. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again. And wouldn't ya know it, I WAS wrong again.

I actually found myself enjoying the episode. Sure, it's nothing groundbreaking, a little rough around the edges, and it took a little time to build some steam...but I was into the story. It did help that I divorced my mind from the whole Kolchak concept in order to enjoy it.

Townsend's portrayal of Kolchak, though, is MILES away from what the character was and is supposed to be. He's too smug, a little too stoic. And he's apparently very well off financially, as opposed to the original who was scraping for everything. Hopefully this won't be too much of a detriment.

It may put some people off how the situation with the mysterious creatures was never resolved...but that's one of the things I liked about it. The old Kolchak series used that same device of not resolving all of the strange cases. The old series left a LOT of loose ends. Perhaps this new incarnation can take that and do something with it....link these events together somehow. Could be fun.

I see this as a sort of "Supernatural Lite"....but it has potential. I wanna see where they go with it. I wanna see what's up with the mystery of Kolchak's wife's death. I wanna see what's up with the stick-in-his-ass federal agent....who is obviously so hellbent on nailing Kolchak to the wall he'll supress, or even destroy, evidence that will clear Kolchak's name, and shed some light on the weird crap that's going on. What the hell is his agenda? It obviously goes a lot deeper than a simple jones for justice. I wanna know this stuff. So...I guess the only way to find out is to keep watchin'.

I still think they should have gone a different way with this new series....maybe casting Stuart Townsend as a different person instead of Carl Kolchak....A reporter who is perhaps investigating the dissapearance of Kolchak, find's Carl Kolchak's old tapes (of which he made many) and decides to follow up on those old aformentioned loose ends while on the trail of the missing reporter. That could have worked a lot better. But c'est la vie.

Whoa nelly...looks like I've rambled incoherently on the subject. Yikes and sorry. Lol. But like I said....not a bad show. Let's keep watching.

[Vilandra]

Did you notice Gavin in the episode? Thought that was pretty cool.


I can't decide what I thought about this episode. I love Stuart, but I think I need to see the next ep before I can really get a handle on it.