"Kolchak: The Night Stalker" is a television show from the mid-1970s that was basically the prototype for The X-Files. The quality of the show's writing and directing was pretty spotty overall, but the good episodes are quite fun. Darren McGavin plays Carl Kolchak, a wise-cracking quick-thinking Chicago reporter with a penchant for attracting supernatural phenomena. Each week he discovered a new monster/myth haunting Chicago. He tackled all kinds of things from vampires and werewolves to manifestations from the subconscious and a headless ghost on a motorcycle. Sometimes the resolutions were cop-outs (that damn camera of his saves him on multiple occasions as a spur of the moment thing), and other times the special effects were just too terrible to excuse (the lizard man in the final episode). The last quarter of the show took a serious hit in quality, but by then I think the production was falling apart anyway. Overall, a very fun show that I wish was held to a higher standard of quality.
7/10
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