Kolchak: The Night Stalker – Primal Scream

January 17, 1975 Season 1 Episode 13

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

It’s good to be watching Kolchak again after the Christmas and New Year’s break. Welcome back, everyone! In this one, we have two recognizable TV stars. Jamie Farr (MASH) and Pat Harrington (One Day At A Time) both appear.

The episode has Kolchak investigating a string of killings tied to a missing anthropology professor, and from there, it spirals into the missing link. The best course of action here is restraint; the monster is rarely seen clearly, and when it is, it’s brief, violent, and deeply unsettling. Director Robert Michael Lewis shoots much of the episode in shadows and tight frames, letting your imagination do most of the work. Frozen cell samples from the Antarctic are accidentally exposed to heat and grow into a missing link that breaks out from the lab and embarks on a rampage.

Kolchak, in this episode, is stubborn to the point of self-destruction, but also shaken by what he’s uncovering. There’s a moment when Kolchak realizes the killer isn’t driven by malice but by something older and uncontrollable. It works because it taps into a universal fear that, beneath our suits and the rules, we are still animals. The supporting cast, especially John Doucette as Sheriff Frank Packer, grounds the episode in realism, making the supernatural elements feel plausible.

No catchy catchphrases, no tidy ending, just a reminder that some monsters don’t come from folklore books, they come from inside us. Tony Vincenzo doesn’t get much to do this time, but there’s some comical interaction between Kolchak and Updyke as the latter threatens to have Kolchak’s car towed if he keeps parking in Updyke’s parking spot…but Kolchak gets him back. 

Another good episode. Not the best one, but still up there. Again…with 7 more to go, I haven’t seen a clunker episode yet. 

The Complete Episode Here.

Next Week’s Episode

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

20 thoughts on “Kolchak: The Night Stalker – Primal Scream”

  1. Pingback: Kolchak: The Night Stalker – Primal Scream – MobsterTiger

  3. OK, now that the new year and all that entails family-wise is settling down I can get back to catching up on some I’ve missed over my hectic end of year shitfest- ooopsy, errrr, Christmas festivities.

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      3. Thanks Max, sounds good. I have been able to access almost all you’ve posted ‘(that is till I had my break)

        so having a link could well help.

        (My keyboard is sticking on the ‘X’ so you nearly became ‘Ma’ before I scanned this before pressing ‘send!’

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      4. I’ve been called worse than “ma” so that would be alright! Or you can use “pop” either way you want to go lol.
        Cool…because I just sent them to someone so I have them all in one email that I will copy.

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  4. Notice: probable spoilers alert!

    I watched this one last night and thought it was pretty good. I know I never saw it before (or I’m oldtimer’s has gotten me.) There are scary bits that gave me shivers. I was surprised at how little they showed the beast. It reminded me of a combo of the Wizard of Oz flying monkeys and the prehistoric apes from the 2001 movie. As it was eating people I don’t get how Kolchak had the warm fuzzies for it at the end.

    One part I did NOT like was Kolchak invading the personal space of the PR guy’s secretary (and trying to pass it off as humor!) Nobody thought twice of that back in the day but now it gives me the creeps and knocks Kolchak down a notch in my estimation.

    I had to keep taking breaks while watching it for various reasons, but I’m glad I did, but it gave me a chance to rewind a few parts. At the end where he has to go down into tunnels to find the creature, he says before he goes in that the tunnels are under a sports field that tested nuclear power. It made me wonder if that was true or part of the screenplay. I went to old faithful, wiki, and found out:

    “Stagg Field, the football stadium for the University of Chicago, is remembered for its role in a landmark scientific achievement of Enrico Fermi and the Metallurgical Laboratory during the Manhattan Project. The site of the first artificial nuclear chain reaction, which occurred within the field’s west viewing-stands structure, received designation as a National Historic Landmark on February 18, 1965.  On October 15, 1966, which is the day that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was enacted creating the National Register of Historic Places, it was added to that as well.  The site was named a Chicago Landmark on October 27, 1971. ”

    Now if that doesn’t freak people out, I don’t know what will.

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      3. Yeah Lisa, I was aware of the radium girls, what a travesty that was. And the companies did their best to delay proceedings knowing that dead men/women tell no tales! Cold blooded capitalism at its ugliest.The only good that came from it was workers rights were finally recognised. About 20 years or so earlier they would have just been sacked and left to die, no repercussions on the bosses. Justice comes, but oh so slowly.

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    2. Lisa…on the rarely show the creature…I think it works in the shows favor…because you don’t see it a lot…your imagination takes over….because of the limitations back then…they made it a bit more mysterious. Some shows would show the monster and it looked fake…I think that might be the reason.

      It was another “monster”….kinda like the robot…that killed but only knew that. Not out of malice but out of when he came from.

      I was watching Kolchaks eyes when he was standing over her…I was wondering what he was doing…but he was trying to catch what she was writing…I thought other things at first lol…but yea I agree with you. Most women would not put up with that.

      Yea…I hope nothing was left from that. I read some about it this morning. I just hope it’s clean! I get paranoid because of The The “Radium Girls”…google that Lisa if you don’t know…it’s scary…a bit different than this but scary. A diary from one of the girls…STILL cannot be held up with hands.

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      1. I agree on not showing the creature that much, it was kind of hokey looking. Reminded me of some of the Star Trek monsters.

        I disagree on it being like the robot because robots didn’t eat what they killed. What could have been its purpose in killing the poor woman just walking down the street (that was later found in the tunnel) if not to eat her (and I think they mentioned he was carnivorous in the part with Pat Harrington when he was showing the diff between the skulls.)

        Oh he was so far into her personal space physically! This past summer we went to get ice cream after going to the beach and an adult who looked to be developmentally challenged came up and basically was begging money off of us. We told him no and he went off to beg from others. When we sat down on benches to eat our ice cream he literally stood behind me and started saying how good the ice cream looked. He startled me he was so close. I jumped up turned around and said you are in my space please back away. I had to tell him a few times before he complied. It triggered me in so many ways. Men (why is it always men!?) have been “innocently” pulling this sh*t for who knows how long. It’s like get the F away from me!

        About “The Radium Girls,” I read Kate Moore’s book a couple of years ago. It is haunting. Their graves are still radioactive 😦 Kate Moore went above and beyond in researching and provides unforgettable details on them.

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      2. I forgot about the eating part…yea…wasn’t one missing an arm? I wasn’t sure if he ate them but he might have…but he was essentially a caveman I guess…right?

        Yea…I know men who do that to other men. Get right in my face and talk…I step back and they step forward. I don’t think…at least the ones to me…mean it as bad but some people just don’t get personal space. Jennifer gets PISSED when that happens to her. One guy came to install our Air Conditioner 20 years ago…and the guy was a few inches away looking at her shirt…it had “Dodgers” on it…and she said…HELLO…I know you are not looking at the word Dodgers…back up now.

        It sounds like the guy with you isn’t all there. Thats downright creepy!

        I read a few things about that radium inncident a few years ago…just terrible. Kate Moore? I’ll look that up.

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      3. Yes on Kate Moore. I also read her book The Woman Who Would Not Be Silenced, about a time in not so distant past when men could have their wives committed to asylums sometimes for life just because they didn’t like what they had to say.

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