A Girlish Night of Horror

Finals are over, thanks be to God, and I am enjoying my well-earned respite from all things academic. I am doing so by painting my fingernails black and my toes nails orange-- it's always October in my mind-- and watching Kolcheck: The Night Stalker. I am so in live with this show. In fact, I think I'm in love with Carl Kolchak; I tend to think about him a lot when I'm not fantasizing about illicit sexual positions and situations. It's how I pass my day.

In his prime, Darrin McGavin was a fine specimen of man-meat, and even in his old age he was still very attractive. And he never lost that strange, endearing way he brought to every role I ever saw him in. He did baffled and cunning better than anyone else acting then and now, and that's a big part of the crush I have on Carl Kolchak. Actually, it's not just a crush-- I think that anyone who is a fan of this show in some level wants to be like Kolchak; you wanna poke into the dark crevices of the world and come away with some fantastic story. Sure, no one will believe you, but it'll get you a drink if you tell it to the right crowd. Plus I really really want a pork pie hat. The irritating part I do easily and with out really trying.

Part of the allure of Kolchak's personality is his conviction that he's one hundred percent correct, no matter how insane the story. It's refreshing to see someone who has inherent faith in his own senses as well as in his own abilities to get out of trouble once he's inevitably stumbled into it.

The show has a seedy charm, and while the show obviously didn't have a lot of money, what there was seemed to go into little details: Kolchak's black socks with his white tennis shoes for example. Normally that's a look that makes me bite my lips 'til they bleed, but on the unstoppable ginger reporter it's strangely charming. Then there's the supporting cast: Vincenzo, Kolchak's boss, and the two seem mutually loathe one another. Then there is Miss Emily, the older than dirt gossip columnist (the actress who played her actually played another one time role at the start of the show, before Miss Emily's character was introduced. I love how incestuous t.v was, especially t.v in the 70's and '80's.) ANd of course, there's Ron, the financial adviser at their paper, a sexually ambiguous kiss-up that Kolchak loves to torment.

The fembot in me would have loved to date Kolchak, send hm off on his missions, get in trouble with him, then tear up the bedroom. Ahh, good times. I think my blood sugar's low and I need to eat dinner. Man, that woman is wearing some UGLY glasses. But her gold lame wedges are pretty awesome! The turban has to go.

Kolchak is a fascinating (and sekSAY!) character; there is a lot of implied back story. He seems like he's seen a lot of history before the show's current time line, and like maybe he was once upon a time a respected reporter. But he's so committed to the truth, the actual truth as he sees it, that he has been forced to pursue it at the expense of his career. He has continued to swan along anyway, and manages to do it with humor and wise-crackery.

Now, of course, we must discuss the ill-fated attempt to reboot this series that came out a few years ago. It was a weird idea, and I have no idea why the creators even tried to link the two shows. The remake stared Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak; he is also referred to largely as Carl, which is weird, since he's mostly Kolchak in the original series. There was also NO humor in the remake, at all. Kolchak is a haunted man, his wife murdered, and he seeks to unravel the mystery of what happened to her. It wasn't a bad show, it was just nothing like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and was far more like a, X-Files rehash, which is strangely ironic since Chris Carter has acknowledged that this show inspired X-Files. Suddenly Vincenzo is Kolchak's only defender, though in the original series I firmly believe that Vincenzo would have chewed his own arm off if it got Kolchak out of his hair. The new version also gave Carl sidekicks, which sucked because in the original series he is very firmly a lone wolf.

Well, my nail are drying, my blood sugar is all over the damn place (which means giggles over nothing are sadly imminent) and I find myself craving something phenomenally bad for me, so I'm gonna go hit Taco Bell and watch more Kolchak! If you've never seen it, then give it a watch: this show deserves more love, dammit!