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Thursday, September 29, 2005

New York Times

September 29, 2005
What Lurks in the Darkness? Reporters Work a Dire Beat
By NED MARTEL

"Night Stalker" is ABC's revival of a much-loved franchise, whose stories supposed that boogeymen really were out there, ready to pounce. In the series premiere tonight, such a hunter of humans takes an animalistic form that is vaguely lupine, canine and feline all at once.

If you need to know which, or if you need to see fangs and claws up close to fear them, then let the opening installment skulk off into the darkness. Next week, the series hits a sleeker, creepier stride with an elaborate conceit: a killer, long locked away, bends minds on the outside and orders them to commit more murders.

The series is driven by two urbane reporters at an imaginary Los Angeles newspaper, The Beacon. Stuart Townsend refreshes the crusty Carl Kolchak role that Darren McGavin inhabited in the original 1972 made-for-television movie and in the 1974-75 series. Those who loved the old vampire hunter may pine for Mr. McGavin's creased face and straw hat. The rest of us can admire Mr. Townsend's update of a smoldering loner who is still aching after the loss of his wife. The premiere presents Kolchak's vision of that violent death, but he still has trouble making everyone believe what he saw.

After that mysterious attack, Kolchak left Las Vegas, the site of the slaying, and his new job demands that he delve into other people's tragedies. Mr. Townsend appears convincingly detached and intuitive when head-scratching crises arise, while those around him assemble facts through confrontation and rationality. He knows more than he lets on, and his restraint is a survival skill: "How long would I last if I wrote what I believe?" he asks a colleague.

At The Beacon, his ego-checking counterpart is the gifted and gorgeous Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union of "Bring It On" and "The Honeymooners"). When their editor (Cotter Smith) tells them, "The two of you are expected to get along," trust that they won't. Perri would box Kolchak out of more assignments if he didn't come up with so many insights that make her look good. Their shared tag-along is a fidgety photographer (Eric Jungmann) who means well but bumbles between them.

When the series works best, the camera is glimpsing wildness in the margins of Los Angeles. By day, The Beacon's offices inside a skyscraper look down on sunbaked streams of traffic. When night returns, winds rustle the plastic of a half-built exurban house, which is perhaps too close to untamed beasts on the frontier.

The suspense before horrific acts is acute, teased out with clever juxtapositions. On a television screen in a dark hotel room, three vulnerable pigs tremble during a flickering cartoon, just before the wolflike thing invades. In another tense moment, a woman on a treadmill keeps pace to the Kinks' paranoid song, "Destroyer." Then a would-be murderer arrives, heeding something akin to the song's "little yellow man in my head."

A veteran of "The X-Files," Frank Spotnitz, a writer and an executive producer, revived "Night Stalker," and at the beginning and end of each episode, he puts Kolchak at a keyboard in an unaffordable house in the Hollywood Hills. As Mr. Townsend's voice-over mimics James Ellroy's hard-boiled prose, key words pop on screen like unnecessary flashcards. But not all the details of these early episodes are so showily emphasized. Tiny, tattoolike squiggles appear on the hands of certain characters, and a mystery is slowly emerging about who gets them and why.

"Night Stalker" has come prowling when the evening hours, vacated by sitcoms, are welcoming supernatural arrivals. The eerie has replaced the cheery on television, and every network apparently wants to get a little "Lost," or at least a little devotion from intense fans of trippy science-fiction series. "Night Stalker" shows up in the deadly slot where other ABC shows have failed, and the series seems more prepared to compete against CBS's "CSI" in the gory-corpse category. Even beyond that, there's something stylishly scary at work here, if viewers and writers can stick with one another through the darkness.

Night Stalker

ABC, tonight at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time

Frank Spotnitz, developer and executive producer; Dan Sackheim, executive producer and director. Pilot written by Mr. Spotnitz and directed by Mr. Sackheim. A Touchstone Television production.

WITH: Stuart Townsend (Carl Kolchak), Gabrielle Union (Perri Reed), Eric Jungmann (Jain McManus) and Cotter Smith (Tony Vincenzo).

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 8:09 PM

Kansas City Star

A strange new drama stalks prime time

AARON BARNHART

"Night Stalker" (8 tonight, ABC, KMBC-9). Weird, intriguing and sinister, "Night Stalker" is the closest thing to an "X-Files" revival you're likely to see until the year 2015, when David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson finally agree to make another movie together.

The resemblance isn't by accident. "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," an ABC movie-turned-TV-series with Darren McGavin in the 1970s, was a direct influence on "X-Files" creator Chris Carter. And two former Carter associates on that show, Frank Spotnitz and Dan Sackheim, are producing the new "Night Stalker." (Also no accident: "Kolchak" is just out on DVD for those interested in comparison-watching.)

Carl Kolchak (Stuart Townsend) blows into L.A. one day as a newly hired crime reporter and the next thing you know, he's all over a grisly abduction-murder. He's uncanny about the details. Even for a newspaper guy, he knows way too much. What's his secret?

Everyone has their theories behind Kolchak's prescience, and they are laid out in the show's expertly told pilot episode tonight. Gabrielle Union, as Kolchak's skeptical colleague at the paper, plays Scully to his Mulder.

For all those who are not confirmed "CSI" fans, this is worth a look.

Who knows, with everything that's gone right for ABC in the last year, maybe this won't be the ratings roadkill it appears to be.

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 8:07 PM

New York Post

FRIGHT 'NIGHT' RIGHT

By LINDA STASI

"Night Stalker" Tonight at 9 on ABC *** 1/2

SOMETHING shocking is coming to a TV screen near you tonight - something so weird, so unusual, so strange you won't believe they're able to do that on TV.

What is it? A really good, really weird show- that's what.

And as we all know while enduring this TV season in hell, good is rare - but very good is downright spooky.

"Night Stalker" already had two big things going for it. One, it's a reprise of that great, '70s cult hit of the same name, and two, it comes your way via Frank Spotnitz, one of the lead creative people on "The XFiles."

If you weren't around for the first go 'round of "Night Stalker," it revolves around transplanted Las Vegas reporter Carl Kolchak (Stuart Townsend), whose wife was killed by an unknown assailant (an assailant that crashed through their windshield and had a lot of fur and rather long incisors).

Either the assailant needed an extreme makeover or he/she/it wasn't human.

The feds tried to nail the murder on Kolchak, but it didn't stick.

Frank moves to L.A. and gets a job at "The Beacon" with his former, loyal boss who's now editor- in-chief, Tony Vincenzo (Cotter Smith), a TV Italian- American who isn't a mobster (like I said, an unusual TV series.)

Carl isn't an easy guy to like; he's got a chip on his shoulder so big it could dislocate it at any moment.

He makes no attempt to be nice to the senior crime reporter on the paper, Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union). First thing he does is poach her story about a young pregnant woman who was murdered, and then, when the woman's sister and little girl are also viciously attacked, he tells Perri that she's not getting the real story.

Vincenzo forces them to work together, along with a Jimmy Olsen- kind of kid photographer, Jain (Eric Jungmann).

Maybe the most memorable moment of the night is when Kolchak walks into the newsroom and says hello to a guy in a beige suit-it's not just any guy, but Darren McGavin, the original Kolchak, digitized into the action. Nice touch.

Like "The X-Files," there is all kinds of mysterious and unexplained stuff going on, and each week, it may or may not relate to what happened before.

Next week's episode, "Five People You Meet in Hell," is the creepy story of a Manson-like convict (Tony Curran) who's been blinded and disfigured by acid as an act of jail-house vengeance.

So why are the prosecutors, judge and cops in his case inexplicably killing their own loved ones?

What more can you want in a show-monsters, good writing, good acting and Darren McGavin.

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 8:05 PM

The Hollywood Reporter

Sep. 29, 2005

Night Stalker

By Barry Garron
9-10 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 29
ABC

It has been 30 years since "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" prowled at ABC, enough time to challenge anyone's memory. That's probably for the best because in some ways "Night Stalker," as newly envisioned by Frank Spotnitz of "The X-Files" fame, differs markedly from the original. If, however, the new series is judged on how well it scares and entertains and not on how carefully it is cloned, it is both a success and unique among the shows on the fall menu.

In the original, which lasted only one season, Darren McGavin played Carl Kolchak, a Chicago reporter who, week after week, ran into stories filled with horrible surprises and elements of the supernatural. His editor, Tony Vincenzo, was skeptical but Kolchak knew there was a lot going on in this world that defied simple and logical explanations.

In the new version, Kolchak still knows the world can be a weird and dangerous place, but he's a young man (Stuart Townsend), brash and fearless, unlike the original Kolchak, a wisecracker at the tail end of his career who had seen it all. The new Kolchak migrated west, where he is employed by the fictional Los Angeles Beacon. Vincenzo (Cotter Smith), Kolchak's editor, has faith in his young employee. However, Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union), the paper's crime reporter and reluctant partner with Kolchak, assumes the role of series skeptic.

That rough description might suggest that Spotnitz simply has found a new venue to resurrect the Scully-Mulder dynamic from "The X-Files," but that would be unfair. "Night Stalker" has a different slant on the world, and Union endows her character with many other qualities.

In the premiere, Kolchak, newly hired, pursues a story about a pregnant woman who falls prey to a vicious attacker, perhaps not unlike the one that mysteriously but violently killed Kolchak's wife. The killing spreads, as do Perri's suspicions about her new colleague, particularly after an FBI agent tells her he thinks Kolchak murdered his wife.

Will "Night Stalker" be mainly about who killed Kolchak's wife? Fortunately, no. A subsequent episode sent for review indicates the series will broaden its horizons, flesh out Kolchak's personality and let Perri come into her own, all encouraging signs.

Spotnitz, who wrote the script, and director Dan Sackheim understand that, when it comes to suspense and terror, less onscreen violence is more. That, and the smart use of jump cuts and interesting angles, make this a dependable source of entertaining fright as well as a logical companion for "Alias" on Thursday nights.

NIGHT STALKER
ABC
Big Light Prods. in association with Touchstone Television
Credits:
Executive producers: Frank Spotnitz, Daniel Sackheim
Co-executive producer: Michelle MacLaren
Consulting producer: Dan Curtis
Producer: Lori-Etta Taub
Creator-teleplay: Frank Spotnitz
Director: Daniel Sackheim
Director of photography: Clark Mathis
Production designer: Waldemar Kalonowski
Editors: Christopher H. Nelson, Christopher Cooke
Music: Michael Wandmacher
Casting: Mia Levinson
Cast:
Carl Kolchak: Stuart Townsend
Perri Reed: Gabrielle Union
Jain McManus: Eric Jungmann
Tony Vincenzo: Cotter Smith
Henry Gale: David Denman
Emily Gale: Ele Keats
Agent Bernard Fain: John Pyper-Ferguson

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 8:03 PM

Detroit Free Press

A WALK ON THE DARK SIDE: Reporter seeks out truth, chases fears

BY MIKE DUFFY
FREE PRESS TV CRITIC

September 29, 2005

Prime time has turned into Nightmare Alley this season, as spooky things go bump in the night.

'Night Stalker'
THREE STARS
out of four stars
9 tonight
WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, ABC

We have alien visitation and body snatcher thrills ("Invasion," "Threshold"), a sea creature infestation ("Surface"), dead people talking ("Ghost Whisperer") and brothers on a paranormal road trip ("Supernatural).

Now comes moody, menacing "Night Stalker."

And the hero's a newspaper reporter!? Now that's scary.

"Night Stalker," premiering at 9 tonight on ABC, is a paranormal remake of a cult thriller from the early 1970s, starring Darrin McGavin as Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter on the trail of zombies and other beasties.

McGavin's Kolchak was hoping to score the big supernatural scoop.

But as played by Stuart Townsend ("The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") in the leaner, meaner and more stylish remake, Los Angeles Beacon crime reporter Carl Kolchak is haunted by other issues.

"I drive by night. A police radio is my compass. Looking for answers to questions I'm only learning how to ask. About things that adults dismiss ... but that children are right to fear," announces Kolchak, introducing himself while cruising along a lonely highway.

Eighteen months earlier, Kolchak and his wife were the victims of a strange attack on a deserted highway. His wife died. Kolchak survived, drenched in guilt and obsessed with finding who or what killed her. He also remains the FBI's No. 1 suspect in his wife's death.

So right from the dark start, the new "Night Stalker" is a more provocative, emotionally layered thrill ride.

The show also gives off an enjoyably eerie "X Files" vibe, thanks to the considerable talents of executive producers Frank Spotnitz and Daniel Sackheim, key members of "The X Files" creative team.

On the compelling series premiere, Kolchak becomes obsessed with a murder that is similar to his wife's. Jacked up on wild theories, he's certain there's a creepy, perhaps otherworldly link in the crimes.

So if Kolchak is Mulder, who's his Scully?

That would be senior Beacon crime reporter Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union, "Deliver Us from Eva"), who respects Kolchak's knack for digging up information but is skeptical of his theories.

Their boss, hard-edged Beacon editor Tony Vincenzo (Cotter Smith), fits "The X Files" profile of FBI Assistant Director Skinner. Eager Beacon photographer Jain McManus (Eric Jungmann) supplies freaked-out comic relief.

Carl Kolchak just may put a spell on you.

The gripping new "Night Stalker" shapes up as a killer thriller.

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 8:02 PM

Buffalo News

ON THE TUBE
By ALAN PERGAMENT

9/29/2005

In "Night Stalker": Stuart Townsend and Gabreille Union.
Night Stalker
9 tonight, WKBW
Rating: 3 stars out of 4

As crime reporter Carl Kolchak might have said back in the 1970s, get me rewrite.

In my season preview, I noted that the pilot of ABC's remake of "Night Stalker" (9 tonight, WKBW-TV), starring feature film actor Stuart Townsend, had some of the worst buzz of the new season and was being reworked.

After further review, the call is reversed. The revision of the pilot by Frank Spotnitz ("The X-Files") results in a chilling, creepy hour that is augmented by a change in Townsend's mood, some poetic narration and mood setting music by Philip Glass. Townsend (Charlize Theron's significant other), seems to smile more often than in the original version, which may be a reaction to criticism of his earlier cold demeanor.

A future episode, "The Five People You Meet in Hell," sent for review about a manipulative Charles Manson wannabe who turns good citizens into murderers by reciting the phrase "you know what you have to do," is intensely involving and has a great twist.

It is pointless to compare this version to the 1974-75 one-year wonder that starred Darren McGavin and was one of the inspirations for Chris Carter's "The X-Files." After all, the majority of people in the age 18 through 49 demographic that ABC is seeking weren't born when McGavin was on the trail of vampires, werewolves, aliens and unexplained phenomena. Spotnitz isn't running away from the original, even digitally dropping McGavin in one scene in the pilot, paying homage to the old series.

In tonight's opener, Kolchak has left a Las Vegas newspaper to cover crime for the Los Angeles Beacon. The first assignment he takes on has remarkable similarities to an unsolved case involving his beautiful dead wife.

He was suspected of killing her years ago because she was found mauled after a car accident in which he survived. He originally claimed that an animal attacked, which landed him in a psychiatric hospital. An FBI agent believed he did it, but there wasn't any evidence.

Naturally, or is it supernaturally, he is drawn to a case in which a husband is accused of murdering his pregnant wife. Unfortunately, the story belongs to the newspaper's current crime reporter, Perri Reed (the beautiful Gabrielle Union).
Kolchak's reporting instincts are so impressive that a suspicious and competitive Reed decides to investigate him, which complicates their relationship and the show's dynamic. In a few weeks, Reed illogically is putting her life in Kolchak's hands.

But logic isn't the strong suit of "Night Stalker." Its creepiness, its twists, its darkness, its photography (especially in a scene inside a cave) are the primary attractions.

On the down side, it is another of this fall's series that focus on women in jeopardy and the disturbing trend of having them become victims of bizarre crimes. But at least the violence is mostly off-camera, which means the scares are in the viewers' imaginations.

So far, the minds of Western New Yorkers don't seem that interested in all the sci-fi and supernatural series on the menu. ABC's "Invasion" benefited from the "Lost" lead-in and got the best sampling and the Jennifer Love Hewitt series, "Ghost Whisperer," had a decent opening on WIVB-TV. But NBC's "Surface" lost 25 percent of its audience in its second week, "Threshold" on CBS has had a weak opening and WB's scary "Supernatural" can't get arrested in a horrific time slot.

The simplicity of "Night Stalker," which has a manageable regular cast of four regulars that includes Cotter Smith as Kolchak's supportive boss and Eric Jungmann as an ambitious photographer is one of the show's strengths. Ignore the earlier buzz. You know what you have to do. Watch it.

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 7:59 PM

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Another "Night Stalker" blog will be posting at tvguide.com later this week. There will be more frequent postings -- and a lot of other extras -- coming to this site in the days and weeks ahead. Stay tuned...

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 8:15 PM

Thursday, September 15, 2005

The official "Night Stalker" website is up! To access it, go to www.carlkolchak.com or to abc.com.

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 9:42 AM

My apologies for not blogging of late. As you can imagine, I have been busy doing other writing. Here, belatedly, is the update: We are shooting Episode 5, and begin production on Episode 6 on Friday. The show is looking GREAT. I'm eager for everyone to see the pilot, which has benefited from a reshoot of the final third -- it's much bigger and better. And after that, the series only GETS BETTER...

posted by Frank Spotnitz at 9:32 AM