kolchak: the night stalker -- episode 13: primal scream
last week in this space, i gushed about the magic that was kolchak episode 12. it was the perfect confluence of story, writing with a pinch of my own home-made conspiracy theory that made it my favorite hour of the show so far.
This week, we get back to good ol' "wtf is happening here" type kolchak. it felt right, guys. it felt right.
our story begins in the laboratory of dr. jules copenik, researcher and all-around super science guy, working under the auspices of the oceanic international oil corporation. seems like a good life for dr. copenik. a quiet life. a science life.
until a dude in an ape suit jumps out of a freezer and wrecks your shit. sorry, dr. c.
when word of the murder gets out, our man carl kolchak shows up to the o.i.o. labs for the police briefing. cops don't know much and are saying even less. they won't let anyone get photos of the body. but of course, kolchak sneaks a peak under the sheet as the body is wheeled past.
funny thing about this body ... it's missing an arm. and the cops don't know where it is. doesn't seem like the kind of thing that gets easily misplaced.
looking for answers, kolchak drops in on thomas j. kitzmiller, head of public relations for o.i.o. -- a man who enjoys lunch and looks suspiciously like the sort of person who would go on to become a building superintendent in indianapolis. he tells kolchak all about the company's drilling exploration in the great white north. all about the process of drilling for cores and testing them for any number of things.
it's time now for ... Things Haven't Changed Much Since 1974!
kolchak reminds kitzmiller that most of what oil companies make people think of are high prices, pollution, and oily shorebirds. in '74, americans were just about a year removed from a major gas shortage that led to rationing and stupidly long lines at gas stations. funny tho, a lot of this sounds familiar.
this has been ... Things Haven't Changed Much Since 1974!
the other thing kitzmiller mentions is that dr. copenik was doing biology research for o.i.o. that didn't directly relate to the oil production business. the only other person on his team was a dr. helen lynch, who's been in the hospital for the past few weeks after a car accident.
after a one-sided quid pro quo with ron updyke (ron actually gets screen time this week!), kolchak figures out which hospital lynch is at and heads up to chat with the doctor.
initially, kolchak is denied by a doctor. but thanks to the magic of the ol' "help a lady carry her oversized plant so you can hide your face behind a fern while sneakily sneaking into a hospital room from which you were previously barred entrance" trick, he gets in to chat with the doctor lady. at first, she puts up a weak argument about being told by kitzmiller that she shouldn't talk to reporters. that charade doesn't last long and eventually, she spills the beans on what she and dr. copenik were working on.
they were studying cores containing frozen cells that were millions of years old. turns out that the deep freeze just put them in hibernation. when they started to thaw, they also started to reproduce. (unlike human men, freezing cold water doesn't cause shrinkage in million-year-old cells.) the doctors locked the cells in vacuum-sealed containers and put them in a freezer. smart.
you know what's not smart? standing with your back to a giant window while an angry dude in an ape suit is threatening to bust in and beat your watching-tv-while-standing-up ass to death. i'm talking to you, department store photographer robert gurney. ol' rob got his leg torn off by a gorilla. so sayeth the cops that shot the thing. not that they were able to capture it.
we know this because it was hanging out on a fire escape somewhere in chicago. which was bad news for william pratt, who was stuck working a late shift unloading a meat truck. poor will gets tossed through a window as the hairy thing jumps in the truck and snags some vittles.
don't ask me exactly how kolchak happened to show up while this event was in progress. or even how a whole police squad arrived even before that. whatever. the reporter rolls up and sees a furry thing running his way. he snaps a photo as the creature runs past, chased by chicago's finest. turns out they shot the thing with six tranquilizer darts and still couldn't bring it down. which makes this thing at least twice as strong as ace ventura.
too bad kolchak will never get to develop that film. mean old captain molnar "accidentally" knocked his camera to the ground and stomped all over it. kolchak gets his revenge by stealing files about the investigation into these brutal murders.
meanwhile ... in a hospital in springfield!
some super sciencey guys are asking helen lynch what she knows about the project. they let her know that during her hospital stay, the freezing unit in the lab broke down. which seems bad if you're trying to keep million-year-old mystery cells from replicating into who knows what. it's especially bad if you're the p.r. flack assigned to trying to explain why your billion-dollar corporation is researching the development of rogue, rabid ape men that are murdering chicagoans. that's not a good look, dawg.
you know what else isn't a good look? being a woman walking alone on these dark ass streets in Kolchak's Haunted Chicago. because there's probably a dude in an ape suit looking to run out from a behind a building and roughly throw you down onto the concrete. sorry, rosetta mason.
(side note: i've watched this a few times because i'm not sure that the actress playing rosetta mason didn't really get hurt. it looked like she got slammed pretty good. yikes.)
while there wasn't much to go on at the scene, kolcak did manage to get a shot of a weird footprint. after being shut out when trying to ask a lot of high-level biologists and anthropologists (perhaps at the sinister insistence of o.i.o. boo evil corporations!) to try and identify the footprint.
that leads kolchak to a local high school and the office of mr. burton -- a disgruntled area science teacher who looks suspiciously like the sort of person who is also moonlighting in an army hospital during the korean war. mr. burton is bitter about being relegated to the life of trying to explain delicate scientific concepts to ungrateful high schoolers and spends his breaks reading travel brochures, dreaming of june. he's also miffed that his colleagues in higher profile jobs are being asked to consult on this string of murders allegedly committed by a gorilla man.
playing to the teacher's vanity, kolchak asks for a consultation on his photos of the creature's footsteps. mr. burton says they're not quite ape. but not quite human either. clouding the matter even more is that the cells were found in the arctic, meaning they could be nearly anything.
basically, mr. burton's not a lot of help.
however, he does surmise that whatever this creature is, it's probably nocturnal and lives in caves. which seems to be the only time kolchak goes into caves anyway. what good fortune!
but before we go skulking around in any caves (caves in chicago?), let's stop off at oceanic international oil laboratories for a quick break-in to peek at the special metal canisters. which someone has just left out on a counter. are we no longer worried about the cells multiplying? kolchak opens it up and sees what looks like a ham hock marinating in the jelly that surrounds spam. a couple of quick snaps and away with ye! out the window one step ahead of the gendarmes.
needing to find the creature for himself, kolchak retreats to the tunnels under the old chicago stadium. which he claims was no longer standing in 1974. which i'm sure would be news to michael jordan, who played a significant chunk of his career there beginning with his rookie season ... in 1984.
but enough with talk of GOATs, we're hunting gorilla men. by hunting, i mean kolchak is lighting flares and throwing them down tunnels. it helps him find a body. presumably rosetta mason.
you: wasn't rosetta mason killed on the street?
me: yes.
you: and she's down in the tunnel?
me: i guess so.
you: so how did anyone know she was killed? did the cops make note of it then release the body to the killer to drag back to his lair?
me: ...
you: i mean...
me: LOOK OVER THERE!
***turns over table and runs away***
suddenly our furry frenemy appears. he rushes kolchak but the fire from the flare holds him at bay. (fire bad! raawwwr!) kolchak then talks to the thing like he were an amateur dog trainer. oddly enough, it seemed to be working until the cops show up and ruin everything. the creature puts kolchak in a bear (gorilla?) hug. that's when things go hazy.
this scene was sorta bonkers. the video was slowed down but the audio was normal speed. i kept watching it wondering if my digital copy on amazon had been corrupted. then i just chalked it up to being a show with lots of weird production choices. at that point, my mind was easy and free. how i learned to stop worrying about plot holes and love the bomb.
when kolchak comes to, everyone's gone and his camera was once again smashed. the police had figured out where the critter was possibly hiding and followed the trail. they found a tranq dart strong enough to take him down though they must have grazed kolchak in the process. either way, the creature was captured likely to be taken to a lab. and kolchak yet again will return to tony vincenzo with no story. good job, good effort.
reporter's notebook
ron updyke got to do stuff in this episode. nearly none of it advanced the story. but there was a side story about he and kolchak feuding over a parking space. ron got to tell a hacky vaudeville joke and get tricked into having his own car towed. welcome back, ron!
remember monique? yeah, neither do the writers.
kolchak makes a reference to j. fred muggs -- the one-time monkey mascot of the today show -- which seems odd for a show that ran on abc. then again, a.m. america (eventually changing to good morning america) didn't debut for another year, so who would really be upset?
mr. burton complains that the kids call him "bones" burton behind his back because he show them fossils. i don't know, bones burton seems like a cool nickname. lighten up, bones.
quote of the week
"you see, some of our biggest headaches have come from vice presidents." - kolchak
sick spiro agnew burn, bro.
next week on kolchak: the night stalker: kolchak finds an evil witch in the high fashion industry, who is maiming and killing her competitors.