The old Karl Kolchak: The Nightstalker: DVD on 10/4/05

[Blarg]

Woohoo! The great old Carl Kolchak: The Nightstalker t.v. show is being released as a 3-disk set from Universal this October 4!

This horror of the week show was equally witty and silly, but what really shone was the character and acting of Darren McGavin as the rumpled reporter with the porkpie hat and his interplay with his exasperated and ever-on-the-boil editor, Simon Oakland. These guys had a lot of fun with the parts and really made the show a joy to watch.

McGavin's reactions in some of the episodes were priceless, including a "closet escape scene" in one of the dual pilots that still stands out for me as a horror, comedy, and just general t.v. high. He had a thankless job, being a crusading reporter trying to reveal to the imperiled, unwitting public some truly assinine theories about local crimes being committed by monsters, while trying not to get killed by them, fired by his editor too many times, and remain relatively un-punched out by the local police. Clumsy, deceitful, ingratiating, sarcastic, yet improbably earnest, McGavin created a character everyone fell in love with and which is still very fondly remembered some three decades later.

The episodes toward the end of the season weakened, and for some time after the series was cancelled, episodes were arbitrarily cut together to try to expand them into single movies which alternated the story between the two episodes at a time as they ran -- a bizarre butchery revealing network thinking at its finest. DVD's were released with the ending chopped off of one of the pilots, an absolutely brilliant and terribly sad ending with Carol Lynley, gutting the episode of some of its surprising power and pathos -- after all, this was a lighthearted series. This series has, in short, been handled badly, mangled really, after its demise by people who should have known better.

Nevertheless, The Nightstalker still retained tremendous goodwill among its fans, many of whom paid ridiculous prices for even the worst of the few DVD's made from the butchered pilots. I'd watch Darren McGavin do anything, because of how great he was in this series.

Welcome back Kolchak! I strongly recommend this series, and hope Universal, which tends to do things on the cheap, doesn't screw it up.

Here's the link at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000ATQYWY/qid=1128041758/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-5708906-8151868?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

Here's the link for Overstock.com, where it's a couple bucks more expensive:
http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?page=proframe&prod_id=1626944

BY THE WAY -- Please do not get your idea of this classic series from the pilot remake of it airing tonight on network t.v. This is being done by the creator of the X-Files and from a review I've read, sounds very similar in tone and emphasis to the X-Files rather than the original show. From the looks of the pretty boy they got to play rumpled old Carl, I'd tend to agree.

[Iplayragstoo]

I loved this show, and would watch it everytime it was on no matter how many times I had seen the episode. Any ideas if this release of the DVDs is any better then those you talked about from before?

[Blarg]

I think it would have to be, just because the others were so bad.

It is being handled by Universal, though, who often screw things up and do low quality releases of great material. It is going to be on 3 dual-layer, double-sided discs, according to an Amazon pre-review by a customer, which some people may not like; I'm not sure how it will affect visual quality, but it does mean if you have one warped disc, it's the same as having two bad disks, and you have to be a lot more careful about scratches and dirt.

I'm crossing my fingers Universal didn't do anything screwy or cut anything to make it fit; they've done some nasty stuff before. We'll see I guess. Or at least I will. I already pre-ordered it.

[rusellmj]

I pretty much agree with the review. I loved the show as a kid and thought it became pretty weak near the end. I guess as they ran out of ideas.
So the new release has some of the episodes chopped up? I wasn't really clear on this. Usually when this type of thing is done they go back and restore the shows in their entirety and digitaly enhance them. Kinda pull out all the stops. If they didn't do it here it sucks.

[Blarg]

You can only have so many monsters, unfortunately, before you run out and have to start doing the Stephen King thing of making monsters out of dishwashers or beer cans(The Night Shift).

The pilot was one of the most successful shows ever run on television, so good they reran it again almost immediately and then actually made another to milk the reception -- unprecedented moves. When this show was good, it was really, really, really good.

I don't know anything about whether Universal did or will mess up this release. They have gotten some witheringly bad reviews for messing up other things before, though. I'm not so wary as to not buy, but have doubts as to whether Universal spent much money cleaning up the old films or their soundtracks or anything. They just don't seem to care much about quality. From looking at a pre-review on Amazon, the presentation is pretty bare-bones -- no extras or anything. But as long as the stuff is there in its entirety and not edited to fit on the disks or anything, I'll be happy.