Night Stalker (TV series)

Night Stalker
Format	Science Fiction Drama Horror
Created by	Frank Spotnitz Jeffrey Grant Rice
Starring	Stuart Townsend Gabrielle Union Eric Jungmann Cotter Smith
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	10 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	42 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC iTunes
Original run	September 29, 2005 (2005-09-29) – February 7, 2006 (2006-02-07)

Night Stalker is a television series that ran for six weeks in the Fall of 2005 on ABC. 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 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 were limited to using only characters that had appeared in those movies.

Its premiere episode aired on September 29 on Thursday at 9 p.m. against CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS, The Apprentice on NBC and the 2005 MLB Playoffs on Fox. Night Stalker was canceled after six episodes due to low ratings. However, the Sci-Fi Channel (now known as Syfy), which frequently airs canceled network genre shows, showed all ten filmed episodes during the summer of 2006. The ratings were poor on SciFi Channel as well. As of 2007 the show continues to air in rotation on the network's weekday series marathons.

The last episode that was aired 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.

Night Stalker is currently being re-run on "Chiller" (channel 257 – DirecTV) and (as of December 2007/January 2008) Bravo in the UK (channel 121 on Sky Digital). All ten episodes can also be viewed on Hulu.

Characters

Main characters

• Carl Kolchak (Stuart Townsend): The "believer". Reporter for the L.A. Beacon newspaper; continuously searches for his wife's murderer and supernatural happenings in LA.
• 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 characters

• 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 1972 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 L.A. Morgue. A contact of Kolchak's who drools over Perri.

DVD release

Night Stalker: The Complete Series was released 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.

Other airings and 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. On July 28, 2006, the series premiered on the Sci Fi Channel.

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

Episodes aired on Saturday nights on Chiller, beginning November 3, 2007.

Episodes

Main article: List of Night Stalker episodes

External links

• Night Stalker at the Internet Movie Database
• Night Stalker at TV.com
• Interview with Frank Spotnitz - Now Playing magazine