Hi, everyone. Moriarty here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I can’t say I’ve ever been particularly interested in this one. I don’t think Stuart Townsend is a charismatic lead, and I don’t see any need to revive this franchise. But with Frank Spotnitz attached, I was at least a little curious to see how it would turn out. Uncapie, a film geek of the highest order, decided to weigh in on the show, and it doesn’t sound particularly encouraging...
The new “Night Stalker” pilot should change its title to “The Night Stinker.” Stuart Townsend, though a talented actor, is no Darren McGavin. Furthermore, he’s not fit to wear Kolchack’s seersucker suit.
There’s no energy in the characters. You don’t feel like you identify with any of them as you did with McGavin’s character.
Kolchack is a man who isn’t a super hero, a muscle man or a martial arts expert. He’s not wealthy and he’s never won any awards for his reporting. He was an everyman who did what he did best. Investigate a lead that led him to an improbable scenario. He was the ordinary man entering an extraordinary world. Whether it be demons, zombies, vampires, we followed him on his adventures and knew the odds were against him defeating such creatures, we always rooted for him to defeat the evils of the night by using his skills; research and common sense.
He was likable.
The new “Night Stalker” is nothing like that.
Gone are the witty banters between Kolchack and his stout editor, Tony Vincenzo (brilliantly portrayed by the late Simon Oakland) who regularly lost his mind between listening to the nosy reporter’s stories of mindless horrors lurking in the night and bailing him out of jail for being where he shouldn’t be and getting too close to the truth.
These two characters had a great oil and water chemistry as they had gone through hell and high water together. But, you knew that deep down inside each of them, that they would be there for each other if the chips were down.
The Vincenzo/Kolchak relationship in the new series is bland, if it exists even at all. Cotter Smith phones in his lines and has no energy.
Kolchak, fresh from Las Vegas, now in Los Angeles works for “The Beacon,” (Gone is the “Independent News Service”/INS bureau) a local paper.
He blatantly enters a crime scene hijacking a story that was meant to be for reporter Perri Reed (Gabriele Union) and her photographer Jain McManus (Eric Jungmann) about a missing woman. There are elements of the crime that mirror his own past where Kolchak is suspect to have murdered his own wife and his unborn child taken in Nevada. With that in mind as a possible serial killer, an FBI agent follows his whereabouts. Paging, Dr. Richard Kimble.
Yeah, I know.
The characters of Reed and McManus come off as too condescending and are unlikable. They have this attitude that they know more about reporting than Kolchak does. Like condescening know-it-all high schoolers at a student government meeting.
Most people would learn from someone who has more experience than them, especially a crime reporter like Kolchak who’s been on the beat and is a seasoned vet. Initially, Reed and McManus are just too cool to do so but, later on they reluctantly start listening.
The dialogue is mundane at best with a lack of pulse at humor. There is no snappy dialogue between any of the characters.
Lacking is the voice over the McGavin Kolchak had given us to tie-in scenes when he was investigating crime scenes. Going from point a to point b and who he had to talk to or bribe for information.
The Townsend Kolchak does have an intro/outro explanation why he’s called the “Night Stalker” because he stalks the night looking for nameless entities, but the narration of the chase hunting down his leads is missing. He comes off as “Marvin the Mind Reader” knowing exactly where to go and who to speak with.
Actually, “Night Stalker” was what the Janos Skorzeny (The late Barry Atwater at his sinister best) character was dubbed by the Las Vegas news media. Just as “The Night Strangler” was “Dr. Richard Malcom” (Richard Anderson) in the sequel. The titles were based on the antagonists.
There is a moment we get a glimpse of Kolchak’s past and his past “major awards.” Personally, I was waiting for a leg-shaped lamp shade marked in Italian, “Fragile” to show up in the background somewhere.
As the story progresses, we learn that there’s a group of mysterious, “demon dogs” roaming the night kidnapping young children. For what reason is never given. Who are these demon dogs? Where do they come from? Why are they doing what they do? Maybe the reason for the kidnappings was because they were bored and just wanted someone to throw them a ball and play fetch. Its just as plausible an answer.
Yet, what really goes beyond suspension-of-disbelief, is that Kolchak races around in a brand new 2005 gold colored, Mustang and lives in a sprawling semi-mansion. That must be some salary he gets.
Note to Harry: Please send me my gold colored 2005 Mustang. Thank you.
The directing is void of any energy whatsoever. Dan Sackheim could have been phoned in. It was the same way when I visited the set for one day in March. It was like everyone had turned into a “pod person” from “Invasion Of the Body Snatchers(1956 version, of course.).” and were just going through the motions to get this show behind them. And if there’s no energy on the set, there’s no energy in the final product. Just go through the motions. That’s a bad sign on any film.
Frank Spotnitz’s script is a story that resembles an “X-Files” hand-me-down. You expect Scully and Mulder to show at up any moment with the “Cigarette Smoking Man” hiding in the shadows.
We’ve seen the magic trick before, we know its secret and its not fun anymore.
Two days ago, I picked out four random episodes and watched them comparing them to the pilot.
My four were “The Energy Eater,” “The Zombie (a personal favorite that gave me nightmares... Kolchak placing salt in the zombie’s mouth, sewing it up and its eyes opening still has a shocking effect), “The Vampire” and “They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...”
All four still hold up.
Since the original “Night Stalker” movies and series were the genesis for “X-Files”, why didn’t Spotnitz go to the source? There is just so much to work with there.
For example: have Bruce Campbell as “Carl Kolchak.”
A reporter who is good, but not great, finds out that his father(The one he never knew) passed away. After the funeral, he meets up with his mother, Carol Lynley who portrayed “Gail Foster” in the original movie. She tells him that Carl was afraid that the elements he battled would harm his family if they knew he had one. But, Carl always sent what money he could and paid for Carl junior’s education.
After going though his father’s belongings, he discovers the camera, the straw hat and the seersucker suit which fits.
She then tells him of the heroic deed Kolchak did by saving Tony Vincenzo’s life and that if his son ever needed a job, the door was open.
Kolchak takes the offer and follows his lead, only to find that Tony senior has long since passed away and Tony, junior now runs the show and he’s just like his dad.
Who better to play Tony, junior? Miguel Ferrar. That way you carry on the tradition. You have the banter. The witticisms. The conflict.
DIALOGUE:
Vincenzo: “I don’t know why I should give you a job just because your father worked for my father.”
Kolchak: “Who’d want to work for you? Unless, there’s something wrong with them...mentally.”
OR
Politician: “You know, Kolchak, you keep insisting that there’s this creature of the night doing horrible atrocities. People are going to think you’re mad or that mother didn’t raise you right.”
Kolchak: “At least she didn’t bark.”
The staff had tremendous potential to create an incredible series, but if the episodes to come are based upon the pilot, I see it short-lived and easily forgotten.
Darren McGavin is and always will be “Carl Kolchak.” There can be no other.
Uncapie
I guess we’ll have a chance to see soon when this one premieres. Until then, at least we’ve got the original show coming to DVD soon.
Moriarty out.
