EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on November 23, 1979 and February 12, 1988.

This episode of Kolchak is very special to me.

As a kid — who am I kidding, as an adult — I have a tendency to read way too long in the bathroom. Once, while my family was eating at Red Hot in my hometown of Ellwood City — I would have been three or so at this point — my dad decided to get me out of the bathroom faster by knocking on the walls of the bathroom just like the monster in this episode, which sent a young me screaming out of the toilet with my pants around my ankles in public.

The last episode of Kolchak — star Darren McGavin called Universal and ABC and asked to be let out of his contract — this one has a lizard rampaging in the tunnels under Chicago after a researcher steals some of its eggs. So, while a monster, it’s a misunderstood lizard.

This installment also allows Carl the opportunity to flirt with an attractive female officer, Lieutenant Irene Lamont (Kathie Browne, McGavin’s real-life wife) instead of fighting with another cop. There are also roles for Lance Hoyt, Tom Bosley and Margaret Avery (you know her from her fine acting career, I know her from Terror at the Red Wolf Inn).

Directed by TV vet Seymour Robbie (who directed 17 episodes of Remington Steele, 21 of Murder, She Wrote, 12 of F Troop and was also the director of the infamous Jackie Gleason show You’re In the Picture) and written by L. Ford Neale and John Huff, I still love this episode, no matter how silly it is to see a stuntman running around with an alligator head. As a child and, yes, an adult I am quite easy to please.