EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on September 28, 1979, November 13, 1987 and March 25, 1988.

Experimental biologist Jules Copenik is killed by something so savage that it rips his arm out of the socket. As he worked for the Oceanic International Oil Corporation, that’s big news and draws in Carl Kolchak. This time, he’s fighting with authority again — Captain Maurice Molnar (John Marley) — but that doesn’t stop Carl from meeting PR hack Thomas J. Kitzmiller (Pat Harrington Jr.) and learning more about the research that Copenik was involved with.

Copenik and his co-worker, Doctor Helen Lynch (Katherine Woodville), have been studying Arctic samples that have trapped and preserved single-cell life forms. Carl asks to speak to her, but he is told she was in a car accident and couldn’t speak to anyone.

A photographer named Ron Gurney (Craig R. Baxley) is killed by an ape-like creature currently kept captive. Carl learns the news from his enemy, Ron Updyke (Jack Grinnage) and wonders if he’s part of the conspiracy that permanently destroys his stories. Then the monster escapes, and Carl gets a photo, just in time for Molnar to smash his camera. The ape-man also murders Jeannie Bell from The Muthers and TNT Jackson!

Carl turns to a high school biology teacher, Jack Burton (Jamie Farr), who claims he’s never seen a print like the one Kolchak has of the creature. That means Carl will have to find the beast deep below what was once Chicago Stadium.

One of the victims, William Pratt, is named after Boris Karloff. It’s Karloff’s real name. One wonders, between the DNA being brought back from the Arctic and a character named Jack Burton, if John Carpenter saw this episode.

Director Robert Scheerer also made Ants! while writer David Chase would go on to create the Sopranos, and Bill S. Ballinger wrote the “Firefall” episode of Kolchak and “The Ghost of Potter’s Field” for Ghost Story.