The Kolchak Tapes

The penultimate episode of "Night Stalker" was one of a handful dumped onto iTunes in 2006. In this episode we get the return of Titus Berry (played by Stephen Tobolowsky here and Wally Cox in The Night Strangler) as Carl and the Scooby gang chase down a "vampire" who eats three pituitary glands every 35 years in order to extend her life.

In an updating of The Headless Horseman tale, Carl uncovers the past of a motorcycle gang who had a member decapitated and the consequences of his head being separated from his body. The episode includes a bevy of supporting actors including Larry Linville, Jim Backus, Jesse White, and more.

On this episode of The Kolchak Tapes, Chris and Mike discuss The Trevi Collection. Carl Kolchak gets entangled in the worlds of haute couture and hocus pocus when he discovers witchcraft behind the scenes of Madame Trevi's latest fashion line.

We return to Frank Spotnitz's Night Stalker with a "monster of the week" episode in which office workers are killed by a man (Michael Shamus Wiles) with the power to desiccate their bodies.

Reporter Carl Kolchak gets the runaround from an oil company when samples from an ice core defrost, besetting Chicago with primal beasties. Directed by Robert Scheerer and co-written by David Chase and Bill S. Ballinger, the episode is stolen by Jamie Farr as a disgruntled high school teacher.

Hailed as one of the best "Night Stalker" episodes, Mr. R.I.N.G. has Carl Kolchak writing an obituary for a scientist who happened to be working on a cutting-edge robotics experiment for the Tyrell Corporation. Under the guise of defending America's taxpayers, Carl tracks down Mr. R.I.N.G. (Craig R. Baxley), the titular Frankenstein monster.

Mike & Chris discuss the two-part story The Source and The Sea that brought the Kolchak mythology roaring back on the back of the Four Cyclists of the Apocalypse. It's the story of a DEA agent whose wife is on the run from the same forces of evil that plagued Carl and his dead wife.

A Jewish neighborhood in Chicago is the new hunting ground for an Indian Rakshasa, a creature that masquerades as the person its victim trusts most. But that's the Rakshasa's problem when Carl is on the case... he doesn't trust anyone.

Screenwriter Richard Hatem (Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, The Mothman Prophecies, Supernatural) join Chris and Mike to discuss this solid episode of The Night Stalker.

On this episode we discuss Malum (2004) which exemplifies everything Mike & Chris felt was wrong with the re-boot series as well as The Energy Eater (1974) in which Carl battles another invisible monster, this time with the help of William Smith as Jim Elkhorn.

Richard Kiel returns as the monster-of-the-week in "The Spanish Moss Murders". This time he's a Peremalfait, a creature springing from the dreams of a man deprived of sleep in a study by Dr. Aaron Pollack (Severn Darden). Carl has to get around police-captain-of-the-week Joe 'Mad Dog' Siska (Keenan Wynn) to investigate the the Cajun busker underbelly of Chicago.