woman, Emily Gale, kisses her husband, Henry, as he heads off to his job as a night watchman. Alone in the house late at night, Emily hears a crash coming from the front of the house. She goes to investigate and finds the front door wide open and something waiting for her in the dark.
The next morning police arrive to find Emily missing after an apparent violent attack. Senior crime reporter Perri Reed (Union) and photographer Jain McManus (Jungmann) of the L.A. Beacon arrive on the scene to find another reporter from the Beacon investigating the case. Carl Kolchak (Townsend) and Perri instantly butt heads. Unfortunately for Perri, Kolchak seems to have inside knowledge of the police investigation.
At the newspaper's office, Perri is assigned the story and digs in, only to find Kolchak can't leave the story alone. When Emily Gale's body is found, Kolchak appears to know the facts before the police do. Perri decides to look into Kolchak's background and discovers he was accused of killing his wife 18 months earlier in a case that is very similar to the one they're investigating.
Kolchak confides to Perri that when his wife was killed a red mark appeared on her body. It's a mark he's seen many times in cases where people died in different, but always violent and mysterious, ways. He admits he's not going to stop until he finds out what that mark means and why his wife was killed.
When Emily's sister-in-law is nearly killed and her young niece, Julie, is taken in a mysterious attack that seems very similar to Emily's, Kolchak believes the little girl is still alive. As he sets out to find her and to stop whoever or whatever is doing these terrible deeds, Perri finds herself getting drawn into his world and facing something with very big teeth.
Stalking the anti-Night Stalker
Anyone who remembers the show from the '70s, Kolchak: The Night Stalker with Darren McGavin, will be disappointed in ABC's new series Night Stalker. While the new series is based on the campy classic, it doesn't have the humor or McGavin, and things were scarier 30 years ago on television than they are now. Still, it's unlikely most people will remember Kolchak, even if they were old enough to stay up past their bedtimes to watch television all those decades ago.
That said, the new Night Stalker is worth catching. Frank Spotnitz, who also executive-produced The X-Files, knows how to put together a slickly produced drama, and it looks great. The spooky scenes are scary enough, and Townsend and Union have their charms as leads.
It looks so good and the story is so smoothly told that we almost don't realize that the pilot makes little sense. While there are plenty of cool moments, there's never a hint as to why any of the events happen with the murdered Emily, or why the little girl is kidnapped, or why one family appears to be targeted by the creatures (if they are creatures).
The mystery of the red marks on the hands of people is intriguing and has potential as an ongoing thread throughout the series. And Night Stalker has its own haunting look that makes Los Angeles moody and beautiful. Although the pilot doesn't hold together storywise, the third episode, "The Five People You Meet in Hell," does a better job and is a nice, tight horror tale about a Manson-type prison inmate with powers that appear to reach past his prison walls.
While Spotnitz promises there will be humor in upcoming episodes, that's not what this Night Stalker is about. It takes its cues more from The X-Files than from the original Kolchak, although this Carl Kolchak is no Fox Mulder. Still, that's OK. The new Night Stalker is not up to the standards of either series, but what show on television today is?
What Night Stalker does have is the potential to be something different than either of those two classic shows. We'll just have to give the series some time to see if it can carve out its own unique territory.
