Darren McGavin passed away last Saturday (February 25 ,2006)
Some of you might know him as Carl Kolchak, from the old Night Stalker series. Night Stalker is one of those fond memories of the 1970s.
Kolchak was a reporter working for the small and disreputable Independent News Service. A Chicago based wire service. Each week he would find himself embroiled in some paranormal adventure, try to write a story about it just to have it cut for being too fantastic. Kolchak would encounter zombies, animated piles of Spanish moss, strange Hindu critters and even aliens. Since they were on a tight budget the aliens turned out to be a squirrel cage, E-type 21 wind machine. The tight dialog and great acting made up for those invisible aliens.
One significant thing about Kolchak is the anti-establishment bent of the whole thing. First aired during the end-note of the Vietnam war the program tells a stark tale of one man’s struggle to inform the world of strange and terrifying things lurking about right under our noses. The establishment, police, government officials etc would turn a blind eye or systematically cover up any allusions to supernatural occurrences. Kolchak then became a kind of allegory of the helplessness many people felt when facing a seemingly megalithic and unfeeling government. It resonated with lots of people and even though it was canceled after only a single season it remains a cult favorite even today.
From Wikipedia;
The series has been described as a predecessor of The X-Files, and X-Files creator Chris Carter has acknowledged that the show influenced him greatly in his own work. One character on The X-Files was named Richard Matheson after author Richard Matheson because of his involvement in the TV movies, and Darren McGavin, although unwilling to reprise his Kolchak character, played an FBI agent who was described as the “father of the X-Files”.
