Night Stalker (TV series)

Night Stalker
DVD cover
Created by	Frank Spotnitz Jeffrey Grant Rice
Starring	Stuart Townsend Gabrielle Union Eric Jungmann Cotter Smith
Theme music composer	Philip Glass
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	15
No. of episodes	312 (4 unaired)
Production
Running time	42 minutes
Production companies	Big Light Productions Shore Z Productions (2015-present) Touchstone Television (2005-2007) ABC Studios (2007-present) Sony Pictures Television (2015-present)
Original release
Network	ABC iTunes (episodes 6–12)
Release	September 29, 2005 (2005-09-29) – present

Night Stalker is a television series that ran for six weeks in fall 2005 on ABC in America. The series starred Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter whose wife was murdered. Kolchak spends his time investigating other strange murders, believing they are linked in some way to his wife's murder. He is helped along the way by a fellow crime reporter Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union), photographer Jain McManus (Eric Jungmann) and editor Anthony Vincenzo (Cotter Smith).

Night Stalker was a remake of the 1974 series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. ABC owned the rights to the original television movies, but not the Universal television series, and was limited to using only characters that had appeared in those movies.

Characters

Main

• Carl Kolchak (Stuart Townsend): The believer. Reporter for the L.A. Beacon newspaper; continuously searches for his wife's murderer and supernatural happenings in Los Angeles.
• Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union): The skeptic. Head crime reporter for the L.A. Beacon, but she trails after Kolchak like a rookie. She helps Kolchak in his cases of the paranormal, although she looks at the cases normally.
• Jain McManus (Eric Jungmann): Kolchak's open-minded friend. He is a photographer for the L.A. Beacon.
• Anthony Vincenzo (Cotter Smith): Editor of the L.A. Beacon. A friend of Kolchak's who hired him as a favor after they worked together in Las Vegas.

Recurring

• Agent Bernie Fain (John Pyper-Ferguson): Kolchak's former friend in Las Vegas but now a nemesis, an FBI agent who believed Kolchak murdered his wife and made up a bizarre story to cover up his involvement. The character is loosely reworked from Agent Bernie Jenks, Kolchak's Vegas contact in the original Night Stalker TV movie.
• "Edhead" (Loreni Delgado): Technology specialist for the L.A. Beacon. Friend of Jain's.
• Alex Nyby (Eugene Byrd): Coroner's assistant at the Los Angeles Morgue. A contact of Kolchak's who drools over Perri.

Episodes

No.	Title	Original release date	US viewers (millions)
1	"Pilot"	September 29, 2005 (2005-09-29)	7.10
Kolchak suspects a series of coyote-like attacks may be connected to his wife's murder.
2	"The Five People You Meet in Hell"	October 6, 2005 (2005-10-06)	5.90
An imprisoned Charles Manson-like cult leader may be responsible for a series of familicides ... but how? Guest starring Tony Curran.
3	"Three"	October 13, 2005 (2005-10-13)	5.10
A university club's secret initiation ritual may be the cause behind deaths which are somehow caused by fear.
4	"Burning Man"	October 20, 2005 (2005-10-20)	4.50
"The Burning Man" was a vigilante serial killer killed years ago, but Kolchak thinks that a series of supposed "copycat" killings may actually be the work of the original. Guest starring William Lucking.
5	"Malum"	October 27, 2005 (2005-10-27)	5.00
Bizarre deaths are occurring around a school attended by a possibly abused child. Guest starring Tony Todd and Fredric Lehne.
6	"The Source"	November 10, 2005 (2005-11-10)	3.90
People are being killed by having their body fluids removed.
7	"The Sea"	November 17, 2005 (2005-11-17) (on iTunes)	N/A
8	"Into Night"	March 3, 2006 (2006-03-03) (on iTunes)	N/A
9	"Timeless"	March 10, 2006 (2006-03-10) (on iTunes)	N/A
A woman's death may be connected to old cases occurring every 35 years. Guest starring Mira Furlan.
10	"What's the Frequency, Kolchak"	March 17, 2006 (2006-03-17) (on iTunes)	N/A
Kolchak is kidnapped by a disturbed man (Pat Healy) who may hold the key to the murder of Kolchak's wife. Guest starring Reggie Lee.

Cancellation

On November 13, 2005, Frank Spotnitz announced on his blog that Night Stalker was canceled. ABC announced the official cancellation of the series that following Monday. Night Stalker was canceled after six episodes due to low ratings.

What would have happened

When Night Stalker went off the air, many plot lines were left unfinished. The DVD of the series includes four unbroadcast episodes. The first of these, The Sea, has an audio commentary track in which the executive producer Frank Spotnitz reveals some details of where he intended to take the storyline, had the series not been canceled. Below is a brief summary.

• The bikers who were chasing Victor Caleca are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the pale rider being the biker with the long blond hair.
• The mark on Kolchak's wrist is the mark of evil. If the series had continued, there would have been more living people with the mark on their wrists. Kolchak would have been told the opposite (that the mark is a sign of goodness) by a mysterious man later in the season, but the truth would be told to him by the end of the season.
• The victims on whose wrists the mark appears only after their deaths are in fact marked as good.
• Linda Caleca and Julie Medlock would have reappeared at some time in the future.
• During the episode "The Source", Kolchak passes a sign with a pyramid on it. On the commentary, Spotnitz noted that the pyramid is the symbol of a group, and that all members have the symbol on their wrist. The pyramid means the opposition of Good and Evil.
• The anonymous source Carl had been speaking to on his cell phone in the last broadcast episode, The Source, was in fact Carl himself.

Broadcast and release

Its first episode was broadcast on Thursday, September 29, at 9 p.m. against CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS, The Apprentice on NBC and the 2005 MLB playoffs on Fox.

The last episode to be broadcast was the first of a multi-part episode, so viewers never saw the end of the sixth story. However, some time after the cancellation, the seventh episode appeared on Apple's iTunes Music Store for download. On February 7, 2006, the final three episodes were released on iTunes.

The Sci-Fi Channel, which frequently shows canceled network genre shows, showed all ten filmed episodes during summer 2006, starting on July 28, 2006. The ratings were poor on Sci-Fi Channel as well. In 2007, the show continued in rotation on the network's weekday series marathons.

Night Stalker has been re-run on the Chiller channel, beginning on November 3, 2007. In the UK the series aired in December 2007 and January 2008 on Bravo.

In Australia, the Seven Network free-to-air station and Prime in regional areas screened the series between early June and September 2007.

DVD release

Night Stalker: The Complete Series was released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on May 30, 2006. The set includes all ten episodes; commentary on the episodes "Pilot" and "The Source, Part Two"; deleted scenes; a featurette entitled "A Conversation with Frank Spotnitz"; and unproduced scripts for the DVD-ROM.

External links

• Night Stalker at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• Interview with Frank Spotnitz - Now Playing magazine