EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker aired on the CBS Late Movie on July 13, 1979; July 31, 1981 and January 29, 1988.

“I don’t know when exactly I was in this office last. In some ways it seems like I never left. But, no, that’s not right. For at least a few days I was away, far away, in the hands of men with no faces and no names. They broke me down, broke my story down, telling me how it hadn’t happened the way I claimed. At least that’s what I think they did between injections. Memories fade fast enough without chemical help. But if I don’t tell this story now, I don’t think I ever will. Now… what was that date?”

That’s the words of Kolchak that start this episode, one that’s perhaps the closest to the show inspired by Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The X-Files.

Mr. R.I.N.G. (Craig R. Baxley) is a robot that we see kill one of his creators, leaving behind his widow (Julie Adams). The other person who made him, Dr. Leslie Dwyer (Corinne Camacho), has survived. She tells Carl that Mr. R.I.N.G. wants to be human — indeed, he makes his own face out of mortician’s wax — and yet he can’t stop wiping out human life, throwing around stuntmen as only a monster of the week on Kolchak can.

R.I.N.G. stands for Robomatic Internalized Nerve Ganglia, and the automaton doesn’t want to kill unless threatened. That said, it’s been threatened several times, and even when it wants to give up peacefully, that doesn’t happen. Man is more warlike than the machine it created to wage battles. The problem is that Dr. Dwyer has Mr. R.I.N.G.’s human characteristics and feelings, but studying the readings of St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle’s Ethics and finding out you’re a weapon can mess up any robot.

Do you know who made Mr. R.I.N.G.? The Tyrell Institute. One imagines that somewhere, Philip K. Dick is laughing. Well, halfway, as his book Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? doesn’t mention Tyrell, but the movie made from the book, Blade Runner, does.

This episode was directed by Gene Levitt, the creator of Fantasy Island and the director of The Phantom of Hollywood. It was written by L. Ford Neale and John Huff, who also wrote The Hunter’s Moon together.

Well, here’s a Night Gallery in season 3 with two stories, which can only mean that one of them is from Jack Laird and, you know…

That said, “You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan” has some excellent stunt casting.

Henry Millikan (Ozzie Nelson) is an inventor who always has his creations explode right in his face. That happened again before his biggest competition, Dr. Burgess (Michael Lerner). Then, his wife Helena (Harriet Nelson, the wife of Ozzie and, of course, the co-star of Ozzie and Harriet) agrees to help him with his latest invention. She took some poison, and once she dies, he’s going to bring her back to life. As always, the invention doesn’t work, so Henry takes his own life. But the truth is, it did work. And, like always, Helena is running a little late.

Directed by John Badham and written by Rod Serling, based on “The Secret of the Vault” by J. Wesley Rosenquest, this is a playful Night Gallery that doesn’t feel like it came from Serling, but you can remain surprised.

“Smile, Please” is directed and written by Jack Laird. Cesare Danova and Lindsay Wagner excitedly hurry down a staircase, with her excited to be the first person to take a photo of a vampire. If you didn’t guess that the man is a vampire, you don’t know Jack Laird’s work on Night Gallery. The less said, the better.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on July 6, 1979; July 24, 1981; November 6, 1987 and March 4, 1988.

In a Jewish senior citizens center in Roosevelt Heights — a section of Chicago that could charitably be called lower income — numerous people have died, stripped of their skin by rodents. Harry Starman (Phil Silvers), a resident, believes that the owner of a local Indian Restaurant is a war criminal that has escaped from Germany and is the person painting swastika graffiti all over the Heights.

The restaurant owner shares with Kolchak how to destroy the demon — steel bolts fired from a crossbow. However, he warns Kolchak that the demon can come in the form of someone he knows, a twist that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.

Directed by Michael Caffey (who directed everything from The Dukes of Hazzard and Trapper John M.D. to The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.) and written by Jimmy Sangster (The Curse of Frankenstein, Jack the Ripper; Scream, Pretty Peggy), this is an episode in which Kolchak reminds us that the demon could be anyone, even advice columnist Miss Emily.

If you’ve ever battled a Rakshasa in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, this episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker is the reason why. The episode inspired e. Gary Gygax to add the demon to the Monster Manual, a significant moment in the history of the game that connects fans to a shared cultural experience.

Source

John Kenneth Muir’s Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV: 08/2018. https://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2018/08/

EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker didn’t air on the CBS Late Movie. It wasn’t offered to CBS because ABC made a TV movie from it and “Firefall” and titled it Crackle of Death. As a completist, I’m covering the episode this week.

The new, modern Lakefront Hospital is supposed to save lives. But why don’t its machines work correctly? How are there cracks in the foundation and walls already? And why have so many people died from horrifying deaths in a place of wellness?

These are the kinds of questions that Carl Kolchak would like the answers to.

He gets his answers from one of the foremen who left the construction before it was finished, Jim Elkhorn (William Smith!), who explains that he and the rest of his Native American crew didn’t want to anger Matchemonedo, an invisible bear spirit that Kolchak must send back into hibernation.

Joyce Jilson (Superchick) and Elaine Giftos (Angel) also appear in the cast. Beyond being in danger, they’re two conquests for Elkhorn, who seemingly is as interested in lying down with lovely women as he is in erecting buildings.

The episode’s highlight is when Karl takes two of his paper’s most expensive cameras to get a photo of the monster. Vincenzo stops him and wants to know what’s happening.

Vincenzo: What are you doing with two of our best cameras?

Kolchak: I’m gonna hock ’em, what do you think? You ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer.

As Elkhorn is helping Karl do research, he translates some French. Smith could do that, as he was fluent in Russian, French, German and Serbo-Croatian, languages he learned while serving as an Intelligence Specialist for the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War.

This episode was directed by Alexander Grasshoff and written by Arthur Rowe, who wrote thirteen episodes of Fantasy Island and nineteen episodes of The Bionic Woman and served as a producer on those shows. It also has scripting by Rudolph Borchert, who wrote five Kolchak episodes.

While not the best episode, this does have Kolchak trying to freeze the basement floors and foundation, which is pretty impressive as he’s just one man against a Native American spirit that has been murdering humans since we first showed up on this planet.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on June 29 and October 26, 1979; July 17, 1981; October 30, 1987 and February 26, 1988.

Chicago is filled with supernatural murders. This time, the only thing linking the killings of a sleep research center assistant (Elisabeth Brooks from The Howling!) and the chef of Chez Voltaire is that their chests were crushed, and their bodies were covered with Spanish Moss. Somehow, Kolchak learns that the crimes come from the Cajun myth of Pere Malfait, the Bad Father. Only a spear made of gumwood from the bayou can stop the monster, which Kolchak also finds, and then goes into the sewers to again battle the supernatural.

The monster has come to life thanks to the sleep studies of Dr. Aaron Pollack (Severn Darden), and as one of his patients (Don Mantooth) dreams of the boogeyman, the tactics to help him sleep unleash it in the real world. Kolchak comes up against another Chicago cop who wants none of his monkey business, this time Captain Joe “Mad Dog” Siska, played by Keenan Wynn.

The Spanish Moss Monster is played by Richard Kiel, the same bad guy two episodes in a row. The creature is based on a legend of a soldier who kidnaps, rapes and beheads and hangs a Native American princess from a tree. Her spirit becomes one with the tree, and she hunts down the soldier, killing him with the tree’s roots, which have become one with his hair. There’s also a Florida Moss Man legend of a “large man-like beast with a rank odor and covered with swamp grass” that was seen often in the late 1800s.

This was directed by Gordon Hessler, who also directed Scream, Pretty Peggy, Cry of the Banshee and Scream and Scream Again. It was written by Alvin R. Friedman and David Chase.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on September 21, 1979; July 10, 1981 and October 23, 1987.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, ‘The rich are different than you and me.’ They sure are. They got more money. But there wasn’t enough money in the world to save some of Chicago’s upper crust members from a fiendish force so dark, it can only be called diabolic.” This quote sets the tone for the episode, hinting at the episode’s focus on the wealthy and their encounter with a sinister force.

With those words, Carl Kolchak embarks on a new episode, delving into the mysterious deaths of two Chicago socialites who killed themselves the same night and lost their precious gems. This leads him to the intriguing Native American legend of the Diablero, a sorcerer amassing a fortune in gems to break its eternal curse.

The highlight of this episode is when Karl goes to battle the legend at the Champion Towers, a luxurious high-rise in Chicago, bringing along a small mirror as seeing its reflection is the only way to stop this monster. Of course, Karl gets spooked and drops the mirror, shattering it and is alone, afraid and up against pure terror.

Despite facing a force that can hypnotize people into doing its bidding, Kolchak finds a mirror in the bathroom, transforms it into a skeleton, and then dusts. In a surprising turn of events, Canadian actor Victor Jory plays Charles Rolling Thunder, a role that might raise some eyebrows. And to top it off, the tribe in this episode, the Yoshone, is a fictional creation.

This episode was directed by Alexander Grasshoff (The Last Dinosaur) and was written by L. Ford Neale and John Huff, both of whom wrote the Burt Reynolds movie The Hunter’s Moon.

The makers of Kolchak must have really liked Kiel, as he would return the next episode to play the Paramafait in the next episode, “The Spanish Moss Murders.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker didn’t air on the CBS Late Movie. It wasn’t offered to CBS as ABC made a TV movie from this episode, “The Energy Eater,” and titled it Crackle of Death. As I’m a completist, I’m covering the episode this week.

A doppelgänger, a spirit with a sinister agenda, is at the heart of this episode. It’s targeting musical conductor Ryder Bond (Fred Beir), who has been spotted at crime scenes where victims died from spontaneous combustion. These victims, all colleagues and friends of Bond, draw Carl Kolchak into the mystery.

Carl, after getting to know Bond, decides to assist him. However, he’s in grave danger. If Bond falls asleep, his doppelgänger could emerge and kill, with Carl potentially being the next victim.  Carl uncovers that an organized crime figure named Markoff, who dreams of being a conductor, is the malevolent force behind this. Markoff’s restless spirit is now targeting Bond to take over his life.

Carl must team up with fortune teller Marie (Madlyn Rhue) to combat this evil. Together, they devise a plan to stop the malevolent ghost. This involves a daring act of grave-robbing, using footage recycled from the “The Zombie” episode, and a fiery showdown at the arcade where Markoff died. It’s a risky plan, but their determination is unwavering.

This is one of four series episodes that Don Weis would direct. It was written by Bill S. Ballinger, who also wrote “The Ghost of Potter’s Field” episode of Circle of Fear and the movie The Strangler.

It ends with Carl finally being able to sleep, except it’s in the back of a police car, and he’s hauled off to jail. He closes the story by saying, “Well, I won’t have to worry about the doppelganger any longer. He’s back in his own body and will probably be cremated, which is rather sweet poetic justice for Frankie Markoff. My only worry now is to find Tony Vincenzo to try to raise bail. They’ve got me hooked on some stupid arson charge. But it’s Tony’s night to play cards, and I don’t know where he is. So I think I’ll spend a nice good night’s sleep in the slammer.”