I don’t think any of the creatures remaining in the series will stand out, so we’ll just have to hope for some interesting background items within each show. Not a lot stands out this week. It’s really feeling formulaic now.

This week: a succubus, a female demon who possesses the body of a freshly dead woman, begins to seduce a man and then turns into its loathsome form causing the poor man to have a heart attack (and then be found with a dead girl by his side for good measure). The most chilling of the possessed women is the last one, Maria, who delivers a truly creepy semi-maniacal laugh near the end of the show.

We have our first returning detective – Keenan Wynn reprises his role of Captain Siska who’s given up on the “live and let live” philosophy. Kolchak even jokingly asks him how the therapy is going at one point. The best scene is when Siska tries to explain his confusing theory of who the killers really are. Kolchak translates it as one organized killer being followed by a maniac, causing Siska to toss him out of there. At least this week even the lead cop could see that the goings-on could not really be explained, not that he would admit it.

Vincenzo got the idea this week to try and do nice stories that would uplift people. Naturally, Carl wouldn’t go along with that. Even Updyke, who was all for it, came up with a story where a “grateful” con released from jail by the governor robbed his house and then burned it down. I loved how Updyke laughed at the whole anecdote while Tony just kind of moaned at it. We did find out that Tony used to be in a band called Tony Vincenzo’s Neopolitans, and that they won the Battle of the Bands in 1940.

This week Emily is doing the crossword puzzle instead of the riddles or advice column. She even gives a shout-out to BRIMSTONE, which was amazing as BRIMSTONE wouldn’t be around for a quarter of century yet. A real forward thinker, that lady.

We have a cute campus reporter who helps Carl out even though he doesn’t help her much. With her short hair, she reminded me of Dorothy Hamill, although Dorothy is much cuter. The best bit from her was early on when she offered Kolchak a lift to the gas station only to have it turn out she rode a motorcycle. We briefly see Carl bouncing up and down in the back of the seat - hilarious. She strands him at the gas station, for which I couldn’t blame her because all he did was criticize her. She was there to get him the campus information he needed, but I think they missed a good opportunity for giving him a funny sidekick. A few other characters are just there to be wacky – Carolyn Jones, Jackie Vernon and Milton Parsons. Most of that seemed a little forced.

Finally we have Professor Spate, the archeologist who unwittingly caused all this by bringing a tablet which another archeologist, who’d gone insane, had found in Iraq. The translation foretells the coming of this creature. She apparently fights back by getting to all the people around the professor and then planning eventually to get to him. In effect, all she does is advertise her presence giving Kolchak the chance to end her powers by destroying the tablet. Seems if she’d just let them finish their business, the tablet would have been put in a museum where no one could ever get at it. She finally tries to stop Carl as he begins to destroy the stone at episode’s end. At least that gives Spate a good look at the threat and he covers for Kolchak’s destruction of the stone, which could have gotten him in big trouble otherwise.

The story flows along smoothly enough, with some humor along the way. But the formula is really showing. I was amused by the part where he needed information but all the libraries were closed. Oh, those pre-Internet days.

I’d give this a 5 but I’ll raise it to 6 on the strength of that creepy laugh from the ironically named Maria Grimm.

@mad-pac said:

Morticia Jones ... Marsha, Queen of Diamonds

A double dose of cleverness. "Morticia" to reference her famous ADDAMS FAMILY character, and the "Marsha, Queen of Diamonds" to salute her famous BATMAN villainess.

Milton Parsons ... Salieri

And here, you replace "Mozart" with his infamous rival composer (from the movie "Amadeus" which was Mozart's middle name. )

Until next week...

@brimfin said:

@mad-pac said:

Morticia Jones ... Marsha, Queen of Diamonds

A double dose of cleverness. "Morticia" to reference her famous ADDAMS FAMILY character, and the "Marsha, Queen of Diamonds" to salute her famous BATMAN villainess.

Milton Parsons ... Salieri

And here, you replace "Mozart" with his infamous rival composer (from the movie "Amadeus" which was Mozart's middle name. )

Until next week...

Oh, but you forget that I always include one gag credit as a tribute to our former shows.

Solidly formulaic storyline, but I guess that's to be expected of the show. Sometimes the predictability of a plot formula in a series can give it a comforting kitschy feel.

This time it's a succubus. And her MO is different from other versions of succubi of which I've heard, but that's neither here nor there.

The comic relief was a little weak and also predictable this week: Carl being a jerk and stiffing those who help him of that which he had been asked to throw in for them. And against a cute, nerdy college girl and an aging narcoleptic priest, no less. For all his charming personality I'm really starting to dislike the hero of the show, even if he did slay all the monsters for us. However, the "I love you," to annoy the boss cop was priceless.

Was funny how he had got grossed out by the rotting corpse attempting to ravish him as a succubus does to a man. Glad to see him get a dose of something icky.

How fortunate that the 2 consecutive dead girls were discovered by a war veteran and a nurse respectively who both know a dead body from just knocked out on sight. That was helpful in building the whole dead girl flirting case.

This one rolled right along in the show's groove and didn't surprise nor disappoint me. So I'll go as high as 6 photo posters of a stone tablet with the translation in progress written over it in permanent marker.

Into the final quarter episodes we go, with Kolchak once again blowing off the story he was assigned for a more juicy story.

The opening was pretty effective, attractive woman seduces the college running back and then turns into the lady from the Overlook Hotel Room 237.
It becomes a little puzzling in the following scene when the woman's body, back to former appearance is also found dead at the scene.
The doctor quickly ascertains the woman was an intravenous drug user, which ultimately turns out to be the original cause of her death. It was a quick line and I missed it first time but it ties in well with the rest.
We get our first recurring police representative in Captain Siska, who very early shows his ineptitude "There is no law against dropping dead", I'm glad Kolchak thought this was just a stupid.
The second crime scene does show the problem the police would be having with these cases. The women all have evidence of different causes of death, the men all seem to die of the same reason.
If you reject the supernatural it does seem extremely difficult to explain.

@brimfin wrote:
The best scene is when Siska tries to explain his confusing theory of who the killers really are. Kolchak translates it as one organized killer being followed by a maniac, causing Siska to toss him out of there. At least this week even the lead cop could see that the goings-on could not really be explained, not that he would admit it.

Yes it seemed even Siska couldn't come back from having the crazy sequence laid out to him.

@BobPeters61 wrote:
How fortunate that the 2 consecutive dead girls were discovered by a war veteran and a nurse respectively who both know a dead body from just knocked out on sight.

It is a bit of a coincidence. I guess they didn't want the viewer in any doubt that these women were dead. Though I do find it concerning that neither attempted any kind of resuscitation, they did at least seek help.
The reaction of the people finding each woman after they initially dies was nicely played. They also consistently play the stench they find on returning to the now absent body.

The office scenes were again entertaining. Tony's new quest to cover the good in stories is amusing and the dawning horror on Kolchak's face made me laugh.
Tony's later reaction to the growing body count and gruesome nature of Kolchak's story was understandable.

We get another batch of interesting Kolchak side characters this week:

Firstly the college coach, I don't know if colleges routinely checkout their athletes to pick up abnormalities.
There are every now and then healthy athletes who do drop dead often of conditions like Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy which can be picked up sometimes on a ECG (EKG) so I appreciate this was considered.
Once again this bit character is given a strange obsession, in this case clean living or tuna fish. I would be truly screwed.

The college administrator throwing out 3 letter anachronisms and different departments was amusing, especially when she takes the form off Kolchak telling him to do it again except this time legibly.

The priest Dr Mozart is given 2 characteristics, I found the attempts to shill multiple magazine subscriptions much more amusing than the narcolepsy which just slowed the scene down. I suppose it did allow Kolchak to lift the information he required.

Rosalind Winters the college reporter is another female sidekick for Kolchak. She does show her inexperience having very little information about the previous case. It was interesting she discovers the next victim by ringing someone who rates all the guys on campus, is this an early forerunner to Facebook?
I didn't understand why she doesn't follow Kolchak, I suppose she doesn't know where he is going though as I doubt she knows the importance of the tablet. But she makes to follow him nips back to grab something and then just sits down in a huff. It was a bit of a poor end for what could have been a good character.

Professor Spate is interesting and eccentric with his little necktie. At first Kolchak is able to fool him but he goes one step too far trying to make something of "mint". It was clever seeing him reel Kolchak in and finally exposing him.
Kolchak response in this situation is often to leave but this time he once again takes control of the situation, bombarding Spate with difficult questions, eventually getting some revealing information about the original finder of the tablet.
I am a bit confused by Maria's reaction when she meets Spate, she laughs maniacally. Is it because he keeping the tablet safe? Is it his necktie? Answers on a postcard please.

The final confrontation is pretty spectacular with the Succubus attempting to make out with Kolchak while he smashes the tablet, all while lightning and the wailing of the succubus go on.

Not a bad story but not great, the makeup for the succubus was effective so 6 little neckties all on a Spate out of 10

@cloister56 said:

I am a bit confused by Maria's reaction when she meets Spate, she laughs maniacally. Is it because he keeping the tablet safe? Is it his necktie? Answers on a postcard please.

Well, I tried to find a PM function on this board before posting this reply but couldn't. So for want of a postcard:

Maria was dead and it was actually the succubus possessing her body who laughed maniacally upon being taken to the guy who has her tablet with most of the pieces put together.

Odd, though, that when Kolchak started bashing the thing to bits, he had an effect by knocking away less of it than was still missing from that corner anyhow.

@BobPeters61 wrote: Maria was dead and it was actually the succubus possessing her body who laughed maniacally upon being taken to the guy who has her tablet with most of the pieces put together.

Thanks for replying Bob, I understand that Maria was at this point the Succubus but do you think its reaction was due to finding the tablet? That someone was reassembling it without knowing why?

@cloister56 said:

I didn't understand why she (Rosalind Winters) doesn't follow Kolchak, I suppose she doesn't know where he is going though as I doubt she knows the importance of the tablet. But she makes to follow him nips back to grab something and then just sits down in a huff. It was a bit of a poor end for what could have been a good character.

I found that odd too. I guess she realized that by going back, she'd given him too much of a head start and didn't know where he was going so she couldn't follow. But I couldn't help thinking - since there was a door there - that maybe in the original script, he was supposed to prop a chair under the door handle and lock her in. Then she was supposed to sit down in a huff in frustration. Maybe somebody then thought that was too mean, even for Kolchak. So they left that part out but still left the planned reaction in.

@cloister56 said:

@BobPeters61 wrote: Maria was dead and it was actually the succubus possessing her body who laughed maniacally upon being taken to the guy who has her tablet with most of the pieces put together.

Thanks for replying Bob, I understand that Maria was at this point the Succubus but do you think its reaction was due to finding the tablet? That someone was reassembling it without knowing why?

Sorry for the presumption.

I was thinking that it represented the culmination of her evil purpose. An evil maniacal laugh being something of a cliched standard response for evil supernatural beings to smelling eminent success. Also exhibited by the witch of a couple eps ago.

@BobPeters61
Sorry for the presumption.
I was thinking that it represented the culmination of her evil purpose. An evil maniacal laugh being something of a cliched standard response for evil supernatural beings to smelling eminent success. Also exhibited by the witch of a couple eps ago.

I hope I didn't come off as rude, I wasn't intending to be.
They do like their maniac laughs in this series so you are probably right

@mad-pac said:

Oh, but you forget that I always include one gag credit as a tribute to our former shows.

I see now. It was Sy Richardson as the coroner - from PUSHING DAISIES. No wonder I didn't recognize it at first, as PUSHING DAISIES was before my time, Sages-wise. Age-wise, pretty much nothing we would watch is "before my time."

@brimfin said:

@mad-pac said:

Oh, but you forget that I always include one gag credit as a tribute to our former shows.

I see now. It was Sy Richardson as the coroner - from PUSHING DAISIES. No wonder I didn't recognize it at first, as PUSHING DAISIES was before my time, Sages-wise. Age-wise, pretty much nothing we would watch is "before my time."

Oh, it's a pity you missed Pushing Daisies. The coroner was a hilarious character, the most gullible coroner in the world. The main characters (Ned, Chuck and Emerson Cod) would show up and give the silliest excuses and he would look at them sternly, grumble a "hmmm," and let them pass anyway. As in the pilot.

Ned - "Hello. I'm the dog expert. I came to see the body."

Coroner - " We already had a dog expert."

Ned - "Well, huh... I'm... the other one."

Coroner - "Hmmm... All right."

But later in the show we learn that Emerson, the PI, was bribing him to look the other way, and he wanted more money.

Emerson places several bill's on the coroner's hand.

"This stack of money feels a little light," says the coroner.

"It's because you're stronger than you think," replies Emerson.

"Hmmm... OK."

Something curious is (and I didn't know that when I used Mr. Richardson's name in the gag credit) that both the coroner in Kolchak and in Pushing Daisies are Black. Not a big deal in 2007, the year of Daisies, but an accomplishment for the casting director of The Night Stalker. For once we have an African-American character with good screen presence and who is not a voodoo priest, a pimp, a gang member or an extra without lines.

Back to Pushing Daisies, when I saw this week's Kolchak episode I remembered that in Pushing Daisies they also had a "narcoleptic" joke, about a curator this time. Perhaps they were inspired by Kolchak?

Take a look at this video (the scenes I selected end in 02:21). First we see Emerson and the coroner, then Ned touching the curator thinking she's also a corpse.

Oh, the joys and risks of young love. Fortunately, our hero Kolchak is better than that. He's older and wiser, and above this kind of thing.

If I were to pay too much close attention to the formulaic aspects of the plot, I guess I'd have a couple comments to make about it, but unfortunately, borrowing Captain Siska's words, they would be comments you can't print. However, the show is still a winner in the areas it does best, such as in the banter between characters, as in the scene in which the phrase I just mentioned was originally used. I loved the way Keenan Winn delivered his line and McGavin just let out a "ha, ha," which sounded like he was genuinely amused. I wonder if that was something Winn ad-libbed just on the spot and the camera caught McGavin's spontaneous reaction to it. Just two old-timers having some fun on the set.

And, yes, later we have that amusing scene in which Siska desperately tries to explain the deaths with logical, rational, mundane examples, and Kolchak mocks him saying that an organized killer was going around murdering people, and then was being followed by a maniac who would drop a dead girl's body next to the man'ws corpse just for it not to be lonely.

Oh, and I'm tired of seeing Kolchak being abused by the police (even though he does a great deal of abusing himself). Last episode the police captain demanded his film. now, another captain forcefully removed his cassette tape, showing no respect for a professional journalist.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I forgot to say that we begin the episode with the usual murder scene, which already gets me overthinking it: how come all the victims died of heart attack just because they were "scared to death"? That may happen once or twice, especially if you're particularly sensitive and have a congenit heart problem. But a great scare is absolutely not 100% fatal.

Anyway, we have the interesting interaction with Captain "Mad Dog" siska, back to his "Mad" mode, and a newbie. And who would've guessed that that lady would grow up to one day become the person we all know as Bill Gates. (Really, that hair and those glasses...) Eventually Kolchak agrees to entertain her incomplete ideas as a reporter (she works for the Blue Bird Journal or something, or so Captain Siska thinks) when she acknowledges the fact that she has "wheels". But to Kolchak's surprise she rides a scooter (not a motorcycle, as someone said), or , as I know it, a Lambretta. Then Kolchak manages to offend her and she leaves him at the gas station all by himself. Stupid Kolchak!

Meanwhile back at the news service headquarters, Vincenzo is in a good mood and from now on he wants only nice, uplifting stories. I find it so funny that TV writers write about journalism without the first idea of what journalism is all about. Good journalism isn't necessarily about crime and gruesome incidents. Likewise, just because something is positive and uplifting it doesn't mean it's bland, boring and news-irrelevant like Chicago's popular anecdotes. Personally, most of the time I don't read the crime section of news. Also, when they want TV reporters to have a bad time, they always use some meaningless dog show or flower exhibition for the reporter to cover. But in real life, you know, some people are really interested in flower shows and dog exhibitions (or is it the other way around), so the reporters who do that kind of coverage (for magazines, websites or the Sunday supplement fo the city's newspaper) need to be specialized in it.

Anyway... The show had a lot going on. See how much I already spoke and I haven't even mentioned the tablet and the archeologist. And the succubus. Now come to think of it, many of these elements don't sit well together, like anecdotes, ancient tablets, demons, a band known in the 1940s as "The Neapolitans", coaches who love tuna, narcoleptic priests, youngsters in love, Lambrettas, and a lovely registrar who loves acronyms. (The fantastic Carolyn Jones was really underused there.)

Brimstone, I mean, brimfin mentioned that Ms. Emily gave a shot-out to Brimstone, 23 years before that show started. Well, it turns out the episode gave two (or three) more shot-outs: first, the name of the actress who plays Maria Vanegas is Maria Grimm (which just ended its final season on NBC), and one of the ladies who die and then walk around town to do the succubus's (Who has seen Lost Girl?) bidding is named Betty Walker. In fact, Professor Spate literally says that they don't need "walking dead" ladies on the loose.

As for the rest, I think I'll make comments replying to specific posts.

The episode gets 6 coffee pots which never get hot, while the girl waiting for the coffee, who is just too good to be from this world, also gets cold.

@BobPeters61 said:

Solidly formulaic storyline, but I guess that's to be expected of the show. Sometimes the predictability of a plot formula in a series can give it a comforting kitschy feel.

This time it's a succubus. And her MO is different from other versions of succubi of which I've heard, but that's neither here nor there.

The comic relief was a little weak and also predictable this week: Carl being a jerk and stiffing those who help him of that which he had been asked to throw in for them. And against a cute, nerdy college girl and an aging narcoleptic priest, no less. For all his charming personality I'm really starting to dislike the hero of the show, even if he did slay all the monsters for us. However, the "I love you," to annoy the boss cop was priceless.

Oh, yeah. I'm glad someone mentioned that. I never thought I'd see Kolchak robbing a man too sick to be awake, even if they think this is humorous. By the way, we never seen Kolchak returning the books.

@cloister56 said:

Into the final quarter episodes we go, with Kolchak once again blowing off the story he was assigned for a more juicy story.

The opening was pretty effective, attractive woman seduces the college running back and then turns into the lady from the Overlook Hotel Room 237.
It becomes a little puzzling in the following scene when the woman's body, back to former appearance is also found dead at the scene.
The doctor quickly ascertains the woman was an intravenous drug user, which ultimately turns out to be the original cause of her death. It was a quick line and I missed it first time but it ties in well with the rest.
We get our first recurring police representative in Captain Siska, who very early shows his ineptitude "There is no law against dropping dead", I'm glad Kolchak thought this was just a stupid.
The second crime scene does show the problem the police would be having with these cases. The women all have evidence of different causes of death, the men all seem to die of the same reason.
If you reject the supernatural it does seem extremely difficult to explain.

@brimfin wrote:
The best scene is when Siska tries to explain his confusing theory of who the killers really are. Kolchak translates it as one organized killer being followed by a maniac, causing Siska to toss him out of there. At least this week even the lead cop could see that the goings-on could not really be explained, not that he would admit it.

Yes it seemed even Siska couldn't come back from having the crazy sequence laid out to him.

@BobPeters61 wrote:

The college administrator throwing out 3 letter anachronisms and different departments was amusing, especially when she takes the form off Kolchak telling him to do it again except this time legibly.

I think you mean acronyms. An anachronism is something out of its proper time. When I saw that's the way they were going with Carolyn Jones's part, I groaned. There certainly were better ways to use a talented star like her. But she did look like a stereotypical librarian or elementary school teacher, especially when she insisted on legible handwriting.