September 27, 1974 Season 1 Episode 3
If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.
I’m really liking this series. It’s a shame it only lasted 1 season, but I can see why. It was so different for the time.
This episode isn’t as cut and dry as the others so far. Unlike the zombie, vampire, or werewolf stories that had clear monster traditions, here the writers took a sharp turn into sci-fi, giving us a story about mysterious cattle mutilations, vanishing zoo animals, and an unseen extraterrestrial presence wandering through Chicago. I have said before how this show influenced the X-Files, none more than this episode.
The episode begins with odd reports: animals in the zoo are vanishing, bones are found curiously stripped clean, and a trail of strange electromagnetic interference follows the incidents. Naturally, Carl Kolchak, with his nose for weird stories, senses a huge story. His digging leads him to discover that the culprit may not be human at all.
As always, Kolchak’s determined spirit and undeterred methods make for the typical conflict with authorities, but in this one, that conflict is much more subdued and believable as the police bosses are as much in the dark as he, and prone to benefit from what Kolchak learns on his own.
Written by Dennis Clark and directed by Allen Baron, the episode was praised for its eerie, almost minimalist approach. The producers intentionally avoided showing the alien much, knowing that the limited 1970s TV budget would probably betray the effect. In other words, they didn’t make the same mistake that Star Trek would make at times. The choice worked in their favor; what we don’t see is far scarier.
A funny subplot, as the hometown Cubs are battling the Boston Red Sox in the World Series (both would have to wait decades to end their respective droughts). Darren McGavin later cited this as one of his favorite episodes because it strayed from the usual monster formula and went for something more mysterious and unsettling.
The COMPLETE EPISODE
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