Well, this week we’re back to a much better episode. I even got to hear that cool little mini-theme again that had been playing during the titles and guest cast in earlier episodes but had disappeared for the last couple of weeks. This week’s episode is a little more poignant than most of the others. We learn more about the people who die, for example. There is a couple named the Goldsteins walking home from a movie who take a fatal shortcut. We see them for a few minutes after Carl has already informed us that they will die. We learn a little bit about their life together, how well they seem to fit as a couple. The wife is willing to walk home through a scary alleyway so that her husband can get home and rest his feet faster; she prefers that to leaving him alone while she takes a safer route. It’s a sad little farewell, with the only comfort being that their last moments were spent thinking they would be safe and sound and that the attack happened so quickly they probably were dead by the time they finished their first scream. That’s the difference this week. The victims aren’t just quick profiles from a Kolchak voiceover; they are flesh and blood people that we see interacting with others, none of whom deserved such a grisly fate. The monster lures them to him by posing as someone they trust – a rabbi, a policeman, even one cop’s own mother. That thought alone is even scarier than the creature itself.

Kolchak seems a little more honest and caring in this outing. He admits early on that he’d have ignored the “dead old man” story if not for the reference to him having his flesh eaten. He’s in it for the sensationalism of it, but seeing the rundown meat-packing plant crawling with rats and the people living there, he tries to add a sidebar to his story about the plight of the elderly living there. He actually gets his story printed, but Vincenzo insists he first take out the word “tragic” out of the headline. This is the second week in a row that Tony has made disparaging remarks about old people – one even causing Miss Emily to declare he is “walking on eggs.” This is strange behavior for the editor who would be almost 60 himself (going by Simon Oakland’s age at the time). Perhaps it’s his way of avoiding the thought that he himself was getting old. Emily later comments that he’s been having headaches and that something was bothering him, but it’s never touched on again. If this were a serialized drama, I would suspect that we were to learn a dark secret about Tony soon – an illness, perhaps. But this is not serialized, so it will be forgotten about by next week. It is amusing that at one point Tony exits, while Carl calls out “Vincenzo, get back here!” exactly the opposite of the exchange that usually takes place between them.

Kolchak follows the trail of dead bodies, twice encountering a young uncaring cop. It occurs to me that the cop might have been intended as a version of what Carl could have been if he’d had no compassion at all. He befriends one Harry Starman, who shows him the suspicious Indian restaurant whose owner has been painting swastikas all over the neighborhood. We later learn that these were ancient Hindu symbols to ward off evil spirits, but the sight of a Jewish neighborhood littered with swastikas adds to the unease of the situation. Mr. Starman trusts Kolchak enough that Carl becomes the trusted figure that the monster appears to him as.

The Hindu man calls out the name of the monster “Rakshasa” as he mistakes Kolchak for the creature. Carl spends a good portion of the show trying to track down the word, mispronouncing it in many amusing ways. Finally, a jovial expert in Indian artifacts identifies it and fills our reporter in. The only way to kill it is with arrows blessed by the Dalai Lama (I hope I remembered that right.) Fortunately, the Hindu hunter has a supply of those and a crossbow to shoot them with. He too is aging – 80 years old – and has been hunting various Rakshasas for years. He has no time left to train a replacement and can only hand the weapon to Kolchak with the warning that the Rakshasa will appear to him as someone he trusts, to which Carl is certain no one he knows applies.

This leads up to the most terrifying moment of the episode – and possibly of the series itself. As Carl slowly emerges outside, he sees a figure and then it appears to be Miss Emily. She has a plausible reason for being there – she’d earlier admitted she was working on a crime novel in her spare time and she was following him for research. We know the Rakshasa appears as someone he trusts, but could this be an unhappy coincidence? He warns her repeatedly to stand back but she keeps walking toward him anyway, though seemingly talking like Emily. Finally, he fires the arrow. For a moment, we see Miss Emily gasping in shock as an arrow protrudes from her blood-stained clothing. And then she turns into the creature, emitting a look of shock and pain and then collapsing dead (and presumably disintegrating into dust or something).

The story concludes on a light note, as Miss Emily goes out on a date with someone she gave advice to in the newspaper (from a suggestion by Carl) and it did wonders for him. Carl concludes by telling us that if we should see our favorite aunt coming toward us on some dark, deserted road, “…well, good luck to you, too.” What was sweet was that the comment made me remember I had a favorite aunt, who died years ago – and it was nice to find a reason to think of her again.

For all the above reasons I award this 10 bowls of beef curry, heavy on the curry and light on the beef which will later do a flaming sword dance in your colon.

Random thoughts:

Once again, great casting. Wonderful older talent like Phil Silvers, Benny Rubin, Ned Glass, and Abraham Sofaer, the latter a talent from so many Irwin Allen shows. Herb Vigran and Naomi Stevens as the Goldsteins were touching. Murray Matheson was charming and witty as the museum curator, whom Mr. K slowly drove nuts. Barry Gordon fits the sarcastic waiter’s role like a glove.

When the Rakshasa kills Harry Starman under the guise of Kolchak, we only see footage of Carl walking toward him without even acknowledging him. It at first seemed like an attempt to cover a scene not filmed well and just substituting stock footage of Carl walking. But on further reflection, it makes a certain amount of sense. Seeing Carl walking toward Starman with arms outstretched would have been so out of character for Kolchak it would have looked silly and likely would have made the paranoid Starman suspicious. By just walking toward him without acknowledgement, Harry would wonder if maybe this guy just looked like Kolchak and it would confuse him just enough to let the creature get close enough to attack.

It was nice to see Carl help Emily out with the advice for Mr. Lambert. We’ve seen Emily help Kolchak out on a couple of occasions; it’s nice to see her get some “quo” for her “quid”.

I remember when I first watched this, it occurred to me that the Rakshasa would appear to Carl as Emily. Still it was nerve-wracking to watch the scene when she approached and wonder if he should really shoot her. I think the convincer for him was when she started saying, “I don’t like this place; it’s dark.” Emily’s not a whiner – any complaints from her are usually forceful.

When Emily told Vincenzo that he was “walking on eggs,” I first thought it was a misstatement. I was used to hearing the phrase “walking on eggshells” instead. But then I realized that “walking on eggshells” refers to being very careful about what you say. Instead, he was doing exactly the opposite – talking without thinking about what he said, thus “walking on eggs.”

We’re still not sure of what Miss Emily does for the paper. We were once told she was the Riddle lady, but later thought she was the advice columnist. But here she says she’s just helping the advice columnist out. Perhaps with the fact that Carl’s stories span different months or years, this was a time when she was only helping out but she eventually took the column over herself.

Speaking of timelines, this one had a big goof. Even though it appeared to take place over a relatively short period of time, Carl’s narration fixed the first death on “October 14th”, but identified the death of the cop as taking place on “March 3rd”!

This time we had a chance to make a reflection on the problems of getting old. Old people are treated like a curiosity item, and not as seriously as one would treat a normal adult person of appropriate age. But still, the story makes us think of them with sympathy. The funny thing is that both Kolchak and Vincenzo are in their 50s, so they're not exactly teenagers, and depending on how they age, the time when they'll be treated as seniors might come sooner than they are ready for.

The two police officers whom interviewed Kolchak in the precinct, were young men either, but we could all see that those men were not the kind to take a senior seriously. this got me thinking of the effects of aging, being 53 as I am. In his early 50s, Kolchak could easily climb a fence, and I know i cold climb that fence as well. On the other hand, Mr. Starman (the actor being 11 years older) knew for sure his fence-climbing years were over. That thought is ever chillier than that of a killer shapeshifter.

Oh, the 1970s... This were crazy back then. Inflation was rampant. Just imagine, a comic book cost 20 cents! And pollution and moral decay couldn't get any worse, something which favor the monster of the week to come to this world and check if the world was ready for it. Well, at least, that's what the writers seemed to believe. Our modern, industrial society is seriously unbalanced, and the time in which we live always seems the worst ever, and the past is remembered with fondness. Take Mr. Goldstein's comment on "contemporary" movies: it's all about getting undressed. Guess what, it did get worse. Ironically, those of us who can remember the 1970s as a time when things were simpler and easier to understand, and kids could play in the streets without worrying about drugs and violence.

However, even back in the 1970s anyone could see that taking a short cut through Swastika Alley wasn't exactly the brightest idea. If the Goldsteins were accompanying a boy and Mrs. Goldstein wore a pearl necklace, then we'd be sure this is the perfect scenario for a "Bruce Goldstein, Jewish Batman" origin story.

It was very smart on the part of the writers to play with our preconceived notions about the swastika, such a powerful symbol. Even I, who knew that the symbol predated the Third Reich, was fooled.

The idea of the shapeshifter, who turns out was not a real shapeshifter as I thought, but instead only made people think it shifted shapes, was a clever one for a monster. it almost got Kolchak pierced by an arrow in a moment of friendly fire, so to speak. And we learna valuable lesson: if someone fires a crossbow against you, quickly, take a picture before the arrow hits you! I mean, come on, THAT was Kolchak's reaction? How about ducking or trying to get out of the arrow's path somehow?

For a moment I thought the monster was going to appear in the shape of Vicenzo; even though Kolchak said he trusts no-one, I always thought there was a bond of trust between these two friends. But then I realized Mrs. Emily, with all her innocence, was the perfect bait, and I was right. I just thought the scene in which Mrs. Emily's impostor was shot was funnier than tragic by the fact that we could clearly see the arrow sticking out of a box-shaped object placed on her belly, under her blouse.

By the way...

by brimfin

Finally, a jovial expert in Indian artifacts identifies it and fills our reporter in. The only way to kill it is with arrows blessed by the Dalai Lama (I hope I remembered that right.)

OK, except that the Rakshasa is a Hindu myth from India and the Dalai Lama is a Tibetan Buddhist monk. You might as well say the arrows had to be blessed by the Pope or by Muhammed himself. (Which would be ironic.) From what I understood, Mr. Lane-Marriot said "by the Divine Brahma ."

Nice episode. Entertaining and thought-provoking. It deserves 9 smart, "what-could-possibly-go-wrong" short cuts through Derelict Alley.

Mad-Pac are you sure William Shatner is in this? I didn't spot him. Phil Silvers of course in it, lovely to see him, I'm a big Bilko fan. Spotted Pendleton as well Ned Glass of course.

Just as well they were in it, because otherwise it's not particularly memorable. The stand out scene was Kolchak firing a crossbow into Emily but what happened to the body of the creature? Kolchak looked at it distastefully, perhaps it disintegrated.

As an aside I'm not sure genuine Indian restaurants serve beef curry, the cow being sacred. I eat a lot of curry and restaurants serve lamb or chicken never beef. In supermarkets tinned beef curry is popular for western customers but Indians do not eat beef.

The monster a kind of Neanderthal beast capable of hypnosis yeah right. 3/10

@HawkMan47 said:

Mad-Pac are you sure William Shatner is in this? I didn't spot him. Phil Silvers of course in it, lovely to see him, I'm a big Bilko fan. Spotted Pendleton as well Ned Glass of course.

I was joking. I always include a couple gag credits just to see if people are paying attention. In this case, I was making a reference to the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in which Shatner played the role of Bob Wilson, the unfortunate airline passenger. There's another joke credit on the list as well. Can you spot it?

Odd that Shatner would be the gag credit mentioned. The monster in this ep. reminded me of two different Star Trek creatures in different atributes: The ability to be seen as someone familiar by each different person looking at it rather than anyone seeing it as it was reminded me of that same ability of the salt-sucking creature in The Man Trap while the actual appearance of the thing reminded me of the ape-man creatures in The Galileo Seven. But then the latter may have been from having Star Trek on my mind from the first.

Otherwise, you guys pretty much covered anything I had to say and then some. All in all, I quite enjoyed it. 10 crossbow bolts blessed by a Hindu god.

@BobPeters61 said:

Odd that Shatner would be the gag credit mentioned.

And yet, there's another one...

The monster in this ep. reminded me of two different Star Trek creatures in different atributes:

Excellent point! I remember those quite well.

@mad-pac said:

Brian Steele ... Terrian #1

Ah, there's your second gag - an EARTH 2 reference again. I'll have to pay more attention next week.

Once again Plex transported me a week ahead leading to me watching the correct episode a bit late.

I've found in the last few weeks that I've needed to watch the episodes twice as my mind and attention keeps wandering.
So far I have ended up enjoying the episode on the second watching I'm not sure this is the series fault.

For this week we have another creature that can assume the appearance of others. This has always been an effective horror idea, in movies like The Thing, It Follows and of course in Red Dwarf with the polymorph. You can never let down your guard, trust no-one.
In a way I think it might have been better not to have the creature be so physically imposing when it transformed, as I got the impression it could tear you apart anyway without the deception.
However from the description of the Rakshasa it does seem to be accurate and the hunter does say they are cowardly beasts.
It also shows it is not just a physical imitation demonstrating knowledge enough to use Karl's name and reference knowledge Miss Emily or Karl would only have (the book).
I think it might have worked better if the targets had required these traits as it would have added to the mystery. I'm thinking if it got to well protected people or the old locked room mystery but all it's killing are in pretty open environments. Overall I think it falls a bit flat except for 2 things around it.

Firstly the hunter, who is nearing the end of his hunting days. I think he is unique so far in Kolchak as most of the previous "experts" have been like the antique expert, they know of the myth of a creature but they themselves don't seem to think they exist. The hunter knows the Rakshasa exists and like Kolchak has taken it upon himself to do something about it. It's nice to know it's not just up to Kolchak to clear the world of mythical monsters.

The second is the scene with the creature imitating Miss Emily. There was a moment after Kolchak fires and Miss Emily is show there impaled by the bolt where I did wonder, did he get it right. Of course he did, this show is not going to have it's hero kill and old lady but the fact I had a moment of doubt I think shows how well the scene is played.
The expression on the Rakshasa did make me think of a Doctor Who episode called Inferno, when one of the regulars gets turned into a Primord.

Brimfin wrote - This is the second week in a row that Tony has made disparaging remarks about old people

Mad-pac wrote - This time we had a chance to make a reflection on the problems of getting old. Old people are treated like a curiosity item, and not as seriously as one would treat a normal adult person of appropriate age. But still, the story makes us think of them with sympathy. The funny thing is that both Kolchak and Vincenzo are in their 50s, so they're not exactly teenagers, and depending on how they age, the time when they'll be treated as seniors might come sooner than they are ready for.

I didn't pick up on this theme myself but it recurs throughout the episode. The age of the victims, people's response to their death and the Hunter reaching the end of his time. Even Mr Goldstein when asked what killed Mr Feinman the watchman responds, " He died, he was pushing 80, he was entitled".

Brimfin wrote - This week’s episode is a little more poignant than most of the others. We learn more about the people who die

I think that really does help this episode as they were all pretty well developed, possibly with the exception of the police officers. Even they get some posthumous backstory about, explaining why the Rakshasa appeared as the Captain.

Finally although we don't get a great deal of laughs in the office scenes we do get some nice moments with Miss Emily who has fast become one of my favourite characters and we see Vincenzo tearing strips off the police and actually looking out for Kolchak.

Overall a mixed bag for me, some elements I really like but something didn't click. 7 startled looking Rakshasas out of 10

Horror in the Heights

The older one gets, the more one relies on others. You need your crew - your friends and your community. If your community lets you down, your friends are all you've got. Ask the people of Roosevelt Heights. Swastikas are showing up all over this Jewish neighborhood. The city authorities have given up trying to get rid of the rats. The police have grown apathetic to the devoured bodies that appear regularly each night, and when the media notices it's to do little more than lament "what a shame". Yeah, your friends are all you've got getting you by. Pray for Roosevelt Heights, because those friends are turning out to not be what they seem.

Ask Buck Feinman, night guard at a meat rendering facility. Better yet, ask his friend Harry Starman, 'cuz Buck's dead now. He left his poker party to get clean drinking glasses, and when they went to see what was keeping him found him among the rest of the gnawed meat. The police pass it off as natural causes (old age) compounded by the environment (local rodent population).

Ask Harry Starman, he's got another idea. There's this crazy Hindu, see, new to the 'hood, he's the one that's been spray-painting graffiti swastikas everywhere. He's opened his own Indian cuisine restaurant. In a Jewish community, no one wants any. Crazy, I told ya. Guy showed up with the first of the deaths. Did you ask Harry Starman? Too late now, he's dead too. Pretty thoroughly chewed in under a minute. Pretty fast work even for rats.

Harry had been talking to reporter Carl Kolchak. No, literally, talking to him the very moment he was killed. Funny thing, though, poor Harry had thought he was talking to two Kolchaks at the same time. One had jumped the back fence to the Indian stranger's residence, and the other came sauntering down the alley. The Kolchak in the back yard heard Harry die but couldn't see it. Stranger still, a pair of patrol officers died nearby, rumor has it they both had spotted people they trusted in an alley moments before they went in. One saw a fellow cop. One saw his mom. Kolchak sees a story.

Horror in the Heights, penned by Hammer veteran Jimmy Sangster, is one of the best stories offered in The Night Stalker series. The nature of the threat is made apparent but audiences are kept guessing about why it's happening and who or what is responsible. Xenophobia plays a role in the story, both fear of other cultures and generational alienation, but Sangster introduces his themes observationally instead of being heavy-handed about them (he doesn't hammer them home, if you'll pardon the pun). for the usually comically leavened series it's a pretty grim hour, with dry and weary character-driven humor that isn't much relief and is certainly not camp. Kolchak himself isn't developed much (he is driven throughout by simple decency both in his job then later his heroism) but the portrayal of his editor, Vincenzo, is laudable - when Kolchak hands in a death notice for Feinman, Vincenzo tells him not to editorialize: if there's a story, do the job right and investigate. We also get to see Vincenzo stand up for his staff against bullying by the police. In short, he's written as a professional who knows and deserves his job, which doesn't happen with him that often on K:TNS. He's usually a timid gasbag and butt of jokes. It's refreshing to see him written with respect.

Miss Emily gets some character development, rounding out the episode's treatment of the elderly and demonstrating them to be both physically and mentally fit and active. She's writing her advice column for inspiration as she aspires to write a novel, and she's not averse to making a new romantic connection should one appear. Ron Updyke gets the second-best laugh of the night just by being himself, interjecting with an unasked-for lesson about culture clash and the invention of the longbow, confuzzling his colleagues. He is upstaged only by the Hindu, who explains that he is hunting a Rakshasa. He says to Kolchak, "One must be honest and brave - maybe you?" He pauses a moment and gives Carl a looking-over. "Um, you'd best go home."

Rakshasa are a Hindu legend, human-devouring shapeshifters that can appear human, presented on K:TNS as a monster that fools it's victims into seeing it as someone close or trusted. It's not a creature most in the Western Christian world are likely to be familiar with, and Sangster makes brilliant use of it re: his themes. Its episodes like this that convince me that the series could have survived a few years longer given scripts of this caliber. It's not the ideas that ran out, it's the budget and the patience of its star. Sangster never lets us guess where he's going, nor does he let on that we're being schooled in diversity. For example, the swastika is commonly recognized today as a symbol of human evil and hate while in fact it was already a far older sigil for good in Hindu faiths. Thanks to the Third Reich, it can no longer be seen that way again. I learned that as a child watching The Night Stalker and I'd bet a lot of others did as well.

This episode's guest cast includes Phil Silvers as Harry Starman, hired for his geniality but not his comedic talents, and young TV veteran Barry Gordon (another Barney Miller alum) as a friendly waiter at the restaurant kvetching on about his crazy boss and ragging on the entrees.

Creep factor is high with a highlight being the death of Starman only feet away from Kolchak. There's something especially affecting about horror when it's tied to the exotic, as the servant of Brahma's home is: the ugliness of the swastikas (as we take them in the moment), the beauty of the beads at the entrance, the sitar for incidental score all make a scene that is alluring and upsetting in its tension. We make wrong guesses just like most of the characters, out of ignorance. We're often scared of the wrong things. It's a lesson that's always current.

The mistrusted agent of Brahma is an old man who has no one left. He must rely on the kindness, understanding, and goodness of a stranger, Kolchak, who is intelligent enough and concerned enough to have sussed out the truth of the situation. The story is brought back to its theme...and then Kolchak, self-styled loner that he is, faces Miss Emily in a dark alley and has to decide an issue of trust. He must be getting older.

*10 flaming sword dances in tight spaces. *

Asides: how can it be rumored that the two cops thought they saw acquaintances when no one else was nearby when they died?

I keep misremembering this ep as having the Hindu hero die in bed. He is ill, certainly, but Kolchak confronts the Rakshasa on his way to getting medical help for him. No more mention is made of what becomes of the old man. I assume he lived. It's the nod to 'passing on the torch' that makes me stop at 'passing on'.

If the Brahman thought the Rakshasa was appearing to him in the form of Kolchak, whom he's never seen before, that doesn't suggest good things of his relationship to his employee. Too bad, they both seem like nice people who'd get along.

Kudos to Jimmy Sangster for showing the younger writers how to do it right.

Personal note: the reasons I had to drop out of the discussion group Sages of the Single Season a while back are now fully upon me. Last I checked a few of the Sages were still talking Twin Peaks on another forum, nearing the end of season two. I haven't been online to see if they've voted to continue or if they chose to end on a high note. With luck things are about to change for me, I'm at that nexus. It's brought me a fuller appreciation for the lot of Buck Feinman and Harry Starman...I'm older than I feel, and very much need the help of the people around me to get by.

I hope to be back with more soon, and read what the Sages had to say about this ep and the rest of the series. Be seeing you.

@Simian Jack said:

Horror in the Heights

I hope to be back with more soon, and read what the Sages had to say about this ep and the rest of the series. Be seeing you.

Hey, did you just post this? (The date says March 1st, 2018.) Why now only? We've had a few bumps on the road. Currently what's left of us is in the IMDF Star Cops forum, but things used to be better and now I realize we were having a better time here. I can let you know what's going on exactly if you get interested.

Aw, I don't want to be a downer. Things have been bad for a while, and I'm passing the nadir now. I hope you guys are liking Star Cops, I took a look last year and it looked promising. If things work out for me I'd love to join in again.

Yeah, just wrote this up a week ago and posted today. I'm on the West Coast of North America today, in about two week I'll be moving to the East Coast. Once I'm set up in New York, I'll try to catch up with you guys!

@Simian Jack said:

Aw, I don't want to be a downer. Things have been bad for a while, and I'm passing the nadir now. I hope you guys are liking Star Cops, I took a look last year and it looked promising. If things work out for me I'd love to join in again.

Yeah, just wrote this up a week ago and posted today. I'm on the West Coast of North America today, in about two week I'll be moving to the East Coast. Once I'm set up in New York, I'll try to catch up with you guys!

This is great! You're welcome to join any time. We've been invaded by the Red Shirts, I mean Redcoats, so we're over two boards of British shows. But now that we're regrouping, once we've finished Star Cops we'll have a greater variety of choices then, once again. Your presence is more than welcome.