March 14, 1975 Season 1 Episode 19
If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.
We have the very lovely Cathy Lee Crosby in this episode as Helen Surtees. She runs the Max-Match Corporation, a dating service. It also had John Fiedler, whose voice is very thin and right above a whisper. His voice was probably more well-known than he was. John Fiedler voiced Piglet in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh franchise for 37 years, from 1968 to 2005. He was on Star Trek and guested on The Bob Newhart Show many times as one of Bob’s patients. George Savalas, Telly’s brother, played Demosthenes, which, funny enough, was his real middle name. A nice support from a funny Kathleen Freeman as Bella Sarkof, a matchmaker hoping to find Kolchak a wife (she may, in fact, still be waiting for Kolchak’s return call).
This episode opens with a string of murders where older men and women are found with their bodies showing signs of extreme aging in a short time. Police think it is a normal homicide case with strange medical results, but Kolchak notices that every victim had recently crossed paths with the same young person.
He uncovers records going back decades showing the same face connected to deaths. Doctors confirm the victims lost years of life in hours. Kolchak realizes the killer is not just murdering but absorbing life itself, using it to stay young. The trail leads to Max-Match.
In the final stretch, Kolchak confronts the problem and forces a showdown that reveals the truth and stops the killing. Kolchak files another report that will likely be buried, while the city moves on as if nothing unusual happened. It’s an odd episode. It has some very funny and entertaining scenes in this one, but overall, it’s not one of the top episodes.
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I think you said ratings for it weren’t great but do you think part of the reason for it only running one year is that the writers were running short on ideas for a new bizarre inexplicable killing every week? That would have been a challenge I think.
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The lead actor McGavin is the one that put a stop to it…one of the reasons is yes…he was trying to fix scripts in most episodes and that didn’t help.
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Sort of variation on a Dorian Grey type of plot for sure. Dave makes a valid point. I was trying to cast this series to my TV with no avail. But shall give it another go!
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It would be hard to keep coming up with stories…I think he wanted more than “monster of the week” type of thing….but I’m glad we have what we have. They could have went in a direction like the X-Files…and expanded it..
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Dorian Grey – that’s it! I knew there was some literary book that had a mildly similar theme but couldn’t think of it.
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Now that I think about it…yes….it does…it’s been ages….and they also connected Helen of Troy to this.
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