Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1 Viewer)

[Greg_S_H]

Even though I got this set the day it was released, I just now finished it up tonight. I've got to say, I don't get the reputation of the Sentry. It wasn't a bad little episode. The story was slight and we had an obvious guy in a rubber suit, but it had good atmosphere and was fun to watch. I loved the idea of a gargantuan records facility. That was a big ass hall! The opening reminded me severely of Austin Powers. A mix of the scene where the guy was run over by the far distant steamroller, and the scene where Austin couldn't get turned around in the hall. There were a couple of episodes that will be painful to revisit, but overall?


That was one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, for largely the same reason. I absolutely adored the set. Don't tell me it is a universally disliked episode, too!

 

[Paul_Scott]

sad news, but in case you missed it in the other forum, Darren passed away today.

i was just watching this set the other night too and wondering about his health.

My most profound thanks, sir, for giving me so much pleasure thru your work here.

you will be missed.

 

[Blu]

The Night Stalker was a product of its times. Low budgets were the rule and there had to be some creative story telling to cover up the lack of a nice budget to work with.

I always loved the Night Stalker but I have to admit some of the episodes are hard to watch today. Like R.I.N.G. for example.

 

[Jeff#]

Darren McGavin was a wonderful actor, and he was one of those who was underrated -- totally unknown to today's generation of kids....unless they watched Kolchak reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel, which I kind of doubt.

The cheesy special effects due to budget constrictions were typical of ABC series at the time. Some of them just followed the way TV shows were produced in the 1970s, and that didn't help Kolchak. What did was McGavin's sense of humor and likeability. Basically the original series had everything that was missing from the even shorter-lived remake.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Actually He live on and I think probably be remembered for his performance as "The Old Man" in A christmas Story. That has become pretty much a Classic along the lines of Wonderful Life. His performance really makes the movie

 

[Ed_City]

Plus a lot of young people have seen him in THE X-FILES. Shame his episodes in that were such turds.

 

[David_Blackwell]

He was great as Frank Black's Dad in the Millennium episode "Midnight Of The Century" (great 2nd season episode).

 

[GuruAskew]

Yeah, the interesting thing is that Ten Thirteen tried to get him to reprise Kolchak in an "X-Files" episode, and he declined, then they tried to cast him as Bill Mulder, and he declined, then they tried to cast him as Senator Richard Matheson (obviously named after the famous writer, who wrote "The Night Stalker" and "The Night Strangler") and once again, he declined before ultimately accepting the roles of Henry Black on "Millennium" and Arthur Dales on "The X-Files".

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Well I picked up the series last November and now it's starting to do the freeze up thing, I email to DeepDiscountDVD and they said their policy is only for 30 days, no matter what the problem is, is there some place else to contact to get a replacement set?
Thanks,
G2

 

[Steve Berger]

Generally you will need to contact the distributor of the disks. MGM replaced a defective copy (layers delaminating) of "The World is Not Enough" for me. It took a while and few emails but once I found the right person, they were very nice about. YMMV, good luck.

 

[Jeff#]

OK, I finally got a Universal set (COLUMBO -- 4th season), in which one of the 6 episodes didn't play at all on my RCA TV's DVD player and on that same player only the very beginning of another didn't play.

However, I was able to watch both of those episodes (along with the other 4) on my Panasonic DVD recorder on my TV downstairs and they all played perfectly from start to finish.

Sometimes people think it's a Universal problem, but often it can simply be the fault of your equipment. So if you have more than one player, I suggest you try it on another.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yeah, the last couple of episodes of Adam-12 either skipped and froze or wouldn't play at all on my regular DVD player, but they worked in both of my DVD-ROM drives.

 

[MattHR]

I've been creating a few covers lately -- mostly for Universal shows that have been released, or announced for release, with rather lackluster covers, including Night Gallery, The Incredible Hulk and Amazing Stories. I had also made one for Kolchak: The Night Stalker awhile back, but never posted it. The cover that was released, I feel, is one of the worst offenders. It's such a non-descript cover, with the images very hard to discern.

There are very few decent color promotional images available for this show, which is why Universal seemed to just (poorly) colorize a few B&W stills for the cover. I found a decent photo, which I think makes for a much better cover. So, just for fun, here it is: (original is on the left; mine on the right)

http://home.mn.rr.com/starvinmarvin/...hak_dvd_LR.jpg

 

[Pete Battista]

Once again... very cool Matt!

Where do we petition to get Matt a job at Universal?

 

[michael_ks]

Universal hire someone with talent in such matters...?

Another great cover, Matt.

 

[John Stell]

This message is for the Kolchak fanatics/purists/etc. out there. As such people may know, the original title for the series was The Night Stalker. It was changed to Kolchak: The Night Stalker at episode 5. Beginning with the Sci-Fi channel airings and continuing on with the Columbia House tapes and Region 1 DVD release, the first four episodes' title sequence baring The Night Stalker was replaced with Kolchak: The Night Stalker. No big deal, I guess, but for the fanatic...

Which brings me to the recent Region 2 release. Despite the fact that the packaging is virtually identical, the content of the Region 2 Kolchak release is NOT the same as the Region 1 release. This release features the original title sequences for the first four episodes. Furthermore, the episodes do not appear to have gone through any remastering so that you can actually see the Ripper emerge on the left side of the screen during a key scene in the first epsiode. Also, you actually see the dog fade out of the picture in episode 7. In fact, there are none of those artificial fade-outs here. In summary -

Pros - No DVD 18s (DVD-9s), Original titles, No phoney fade-outs
Cons - PAL speedup (if that bothers you), Not as sharp looking as Region 1

I'm glad I spent the $ on the set. This is how I remember seeing them in 1974/1975 and when CBS used to rerun them on Fridays through 1987.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Bringing an old thread back, does anyone know if the dvd's are now fixed
so they all play properly? I don't dare order another one for that reason
the set I have is very frustrating with it's stops and pixelations all the time.

Thanks in advance,
G2

 

[jamoon2006]

Gary, I bought my set in late '06, and I haven't run into any problems. I've played it through all the way once and about 2/3 of the way again. Does that mean they're all fixed, or that I just got lucky? I can't say for sure, but a year after the initial release, I snagged a problem-free set.

 

[Pete Battista]

I got mine about a year after release as well... I haven't been all the way through it yet. But I haven't had any problems with it as of yet.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks guys, maybe I'll give it another go and get lucky this time around,
G2