warning! danger, will robinson!

we have a new leader in the clubhouse for the worst episode of kolchak: the night stalker . 

peek behind the curtain. i tend to preview the following week's episode whilst doing other things. but even as background noise, i can figure out how entertaining a certain episode will be. even distracted, i had an idea that this hour was going to be trying on the senses. a thorough viewing proved that this week's show was just as cuckoopants as i'd imagined.

***takes a deep breath***

let's go.

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the episode begins with our man carl kolchak set to meet a low-rent hood named mickey patchek at a high-rent fashion show. mickey's the type who's known to sell information to information-seeking types. but he's not normally the type to hang out in swanky places. especially not around haute couture.

kolchak spots the stoolie in the room but doesn't get a chance to meet with him before the fashion show starts. that's too bad, because as i'm sure you can guess ... there will be deaths.

as the showing of the trevi collection begins, mickey is upstairs in a secret room filled with future design plans. mickey is taking pictures of said designs. which is the sort of thing one does when one isn't supposed to be in the room. if only he knew that it was guarded with deadly mannquins. 

yeah, i said it. deadly mannequins.

this is the part where i'm supposed to say that they come to life and attack mickey. but let's be real. it's a hokey combination of plastic bodyforms moving on pulleys and overly made up women doing their best mannequin challenge. somehow, mickey can't figure out what's going on until he's thrown out of an upstairs window and onto a car parked below. 

(arnold schwarzenegger voice) his car was waiting.

it's time for ... marcas has a beef!

while mickey was snooping around upstairs, madame trevi was giving her introduction speech as the fashion show as kicking off. after spouting some high-minded gibberish about where the state of high fashion was headed as we entered the second half of the 1970s, she railed against things like "cartoon t-shirts." as someone who is wearing a black panther t-shirt as he writes this, i resemble that remark. i am now your nemesis, madame trevi.

i hope you get a paper cut on your tongue from a razor in a paper cup. i am no longer rooting for anything good to happen to you in this episode.

this has been ... marcas has a beef!

never one to miss a story about a murder, kolchak is all over a man getting tossed out of a window. especially when that man had information to a potentially juicy story. the problem is that sometimes it forces you to talk to weird people. sorta like the time i had to leave answering machine messages for a guy named "smiley" while reporting a story about renegade skateboarders. college was a weird time for me.

kolchak's "smiley" is a model named madelaine. madelaine is creepy. not in that "she's up to something sinister and spooky" way. more in that "what the hell is wrong with this woman? i need to get away from her but she won't stop talking and i have no idea what she's babbling about anyway but she doesn't look like she plans on stopping anytime soon and why is she so excited?" way.

madelaine offers to help feed kolchak information regarding mickey patchek's death if he could help her out with a little publicity. to that end, she reels off a resume that includes everything from local beauty pageants to blue ribbons in the 4-h club. it also sounds like she's fudging on the actual "having information" part of the deal. but kolchak seems willing enough to ride this out.

things have taken a good turn for madelaine recently. rival model melody sedgewick bailed on a photo shoot for the latest trevi collection fashions, opening the door for madelaine to step in. until she gets cock-blocked by ariel, french model supreme. ariel decides that she and madelaine look too much alike (they don't) and won't work with her.

at this point, madelaine isn't too much of an ariel fan. apparently neither is a local cat. the feline, belonging to one of the other models, pounces and shreds up ariel's face.

(arnold schwarzenegger voice) looks like she has a cat eye.

remember our dead friend mickey patchek? well his rival two-bit informant murray vernon has picked up the stoolie flag and is running toward kolchak with it. at least he was until he got sawed in half by bullets while standing in a phone booth. he was unaware that shotgun bullets are bad for his health.

paging dr. jackson. paging dr. oshea jackson.

seems like kolchak's not the only one interested in murray vernon's info. some mob types are keeping their ears to the ground as well. they rough up our friendly neighborhood crime reporter and give him a 60-hour deadline to pass on what info he got from murray. which is a problem when you don't actually have the info and the guy who's supposed to give it to you is 72 inches underground.

you know who else has problems? melody sedgewick. the good news for melody is that her problems will be over soon. just as soon as her shower door mysteriously locks from the outside and the water in her shower goes to nuclear hot, scalding her to death.

(arnold schwarzenegger voice) melody found herself in hot water.

after a couple of suspicious deaths connected to madame trevi's work, kolchak decides to visit the designer face-to-face. she claims to know nothing about the rumors of industrial espionage going on in local fashion houses. and frankly, she's offended by kolchak's insinuations that she might have had reason to have mickey patchek or melody sedgewick murdered.

whatever, lady. you hated on cartoon t-shirts. no one cares what you think.

still on the trail, kolchak connects with kooky madelaine, who's in the midst of dancing kookily in a weird outfit. she's a kook. which is why kolchak is a little skeptical when kooky madelaine says that madame trevi is a witch.

(when carl kolchak is skeptical of your story, you need to check yourself.)

carl's a little less skeptical when he gets chased through an alley by a driverless demon car. not nearly as fun to look at as christine, though. good thing he has a metal bar to throw through the passenger side of the car's windshield to make it stop.

***tries to find logic, brain itches, gives up***

what really arouses suspicion is when kolchak sees madame trevi staring down upon the scene from an upstairs window.

that's enough to send kolchak to a seminar about witchcraft, held by a guy pimping his own book on the subject. mr. book pimp explains to kolchak that the only way to tell someone is a witch is if they can't be drowned and that in order to destroy a witch, they must be publicly accused of such.

let's talk a moment about how effed up a proving method this is. if you drown, you're not a witch ... but sorry 'bout your luck, dead person. if you survive, then you're probably burned at the stake. sucks to be you. colonial massachusetts was the original florida.

while standing at the additional info corkboard after the session, kolchak is given a coven recommendation by a woman who finds mr. book pimp to be a witch charlatan. if that's even really a thing. i just made it up. anyway, i guess giving coven recommendations is like recommending a church to someone. only with witches.

at this coven meeting (ceremony?), there's a lot of chanting and marching in a circle. they were going to sacrifice a goat until one of the witches in attendance shouts that kolchak is under the spell of a black witch and can't be in the room. they give him a coded message on the things needed to keep a black witch at bay -- including destroying the contents of an oak chest in which the witch hides her power items. or something.

just as kolchak gets the info ... SPIRITS APPEAR! there is MAJOR FRIGHT! kolchak RUNS IN TERROR! too bad it was all a prank pulled by the coven to freak out the new guy.

this scene features madelaine at her creepiest. just look at this wild ass laugh. it's like she mainlined a case of red bull. take it down a notch.

armed with new knowledge, kolchak sneaks into madame trevi's office and finds the aforementioned oak chest. in short order, kolchak is burning everything he finds inside which brings madame trevi running. who knows where she was before that or why she didn't hear carl rooting around in her office. but whatever.

trevi is claiming that kolchak has been tricked. she's not the witch. madelaine is the real witch and those things kolchak burned were the only things keeping her powers in check. and now suddenly trevi can't breathe and passes out.

for the record, kooky madelaine being the witch makes perfect sense, but trevi hated on cartoon t-shirts, so no one listens to anything she has to say.

despite being in the hospital with something called a laryngeal constriction (she's choking to death), madame trevi manages to whisper out something about a rag doll with hair around its neck, stored by the real witch. all kolchak needs to do is to cut the hairs.

so like orenthal, kolchak is off to find the real killers. he skulks around one of trevi's dressing and design rooms until he finds the doll. he cuts the hair and trevi can breathe again. (whatever. no one likes you.)

that's when madelaine appears and explains her sinister plans. she also offers kolchak a deal to give him whatever he desires -- including info on murray vernon -- if he helps her further her career. 

1. kolchak has already turned down a deal from the actual devil on this show. if beelzebub can't get him to sell out, i have little confidence in a kooky, self-centered, fame-seeking model.
2. she tells him the information he wants before he ever commits to the deal. witches are bad at negotiating, apparently.

madelaine's end game? she wants fame, glamour, fancy cars and the whole nine. now i ain't saying she's a gold digger...

kolchak counter attacks ... by breaking mirrors. this is when the mannequins attack. i'm not even going to try and describe this foolishness. just watch the video.

then he starts shaking a bag full of noisy baubles. whatever. it distracts her enough for kolchak to try dunking her head in a vat of blue dye with the intent to drown her. it also doesn't work. which means she's a witch!

or that kolchak didn't leave her head underwater long enough. but i've never tried to drown anyone, so what do i know?

it all leads to a chase with kolchak luring madelaine onto the street where he can loudly accuse her of being a witch in front of passing pedestrians. which probably looks like the strangest street performance any of those folks has ever seen.

in the end, kolchak finds the info murray vernon is hiding (right where madelaine stupidly told him it would be) and madelaine is shipped off to a mental hospital where she'll spend the rest of her life suffering from some ancient medieval pox that hasn't been seen for 500 years.

madame trevi, presumably, goes back to making snooty clothes for snooty people. and still no one likes her.

reporter's notebook

updyke update: he's back and says like 3 1/2 words this week. poor ron. he's been upstaged by miss emily in the last few episodes.

never having been one for high fashion, i've always thought the stuff that appears on runways was weird and ugly. combine that with 1970s sensiblities and ... vomit.

tony actually gets legit concerned for carl's safety when he finds out that the mob is on kolchak's tail. it's almost cute.

salem, mass must have been a really weird place at the end of the 17th century.

quote of the week

"witches hate copper." - kolchak

witches love copper. they hate cinnamon.

next week on kolchak: the night stalker: a motorcycle driven by a headless driver attempts to run kolchak down.