Night Stalker. Yes!

Kolchak the Night Stalker was a televison show in the early Seventies that lasted perhaps a blink of an eye. It featured Darrin McGavin as crime reporter who weekly (and weakly) encountered all sorts of things that go bump in the night. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, zombies, first wives, you name the monster and it got stalked and ineveitably done in by Kolchak. I loved it. Of course I was at an impressionable age then, where the odd, the unexplainable and the superstitious have a strong appeal. I was, you know, 32 or 33. I liked horror movies, rock and roll, good books and sports. Now that I am older, far less impressionable and much, much more mature, I find that I like horror movies, rock and roll, good books and sports, so it is no surprise that when I discovered a new version of the Night Stalker played every Friday night on my AXN (Awfully Xenophobic Norwegian) channel I was happy as a kid in a crypt when the candle atop the coffin starts to slide and there's that creaky sound of old hinges as the bony hand appears and begins to slowly lift the lid! What delicious spooky creepiness!

The new show is played in a very straightforward, sober manner. Events are taken seriously and presumed to be possible. Kolchak is believed by his compatriots when he tells them of the latest weirdness. This is very unlike the Seventies version which was played lighter, more tongue-in-cheek, with suspension of disbelief called for in heavy doses. But then, the Seventies themselves were lighter, more tongue-in-cheek years by comparison to this decade's where it is reality and not television that more often requires the suspension of disbelief.

There are other shows available now that feature the strange and mysterious, "Supernatural" and "Invasion" come to mind, but they both play at a late hour here in Panama. I have stayed up to watch each one once and neither caught my imagination enough to make viewing them a habit. Night Stalker starts at seven, a perfect hour for we early to bed early to rise-ers. And to think, I used to stay up for Creature Features which didn't even begin until Midnight. Of course, that WAS the Seventies. There were drugs.