I have the DVD series and have watched it right through.I watch the series at night after 9pm for maxament effect. I like all the series and episodes. Its too bad the series only lasted for 1 season 1974 to 1975. The remake in 2005 was so bad it didin,t last that long and was canceled after 13 episodes.I wasn,t sorry. You can,t re create a great series like the original nightstalker.The new one had too many characters in it and made carl kolchak weak and it wasn,t even funny at times.I recommend the original series its the best and its a shame that the series didin,t have a longer run.I liked Tony Vincenzo,s character played by Simon Oakland. Him and Carl strangely enough had some good weird chemestry. There were laots of familiar faces in the series and I have the only 3 disc DVD of the series.I do have the Nightstrangler 1972 only on VHS. I loved Carls clothes. It was him and that hat was like a bird ,s nest on his head. He was identifiable at all times. But at least he got down to the story and delt with whatever he had to do. The police couldn,t do what Carl did. He had guts I tell you.You don,t find that in todays news reporters. carl stood out from all others. His boss must be proud of him. If you find this series I recommend you watch it.

I'd love to give Kolchak a higher rating but the show quickly went from scary/suspenseful to silly. ABC's fault. They moved the show to Friday nights at 8:00 p.m., then known as the "family hour". Never should have been on Fridays in the first place. I was a sophomore in high school and loved the early episodes! It was first up against Police Woman on NBC. ABC had huge problems with Friday nights. Bad season for them overall until Barney Miller, Baretta, and SWAT debuted in January of '75. Kolchak should have been a hit. Darren McGavin begged to get out of his contract to end the show. Too bad the writing wasn't up to Richard Matheson's in the original TV movies. Still, McGavin made Kolchak his own, as actors can do. Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden and Caroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker come to mind. That INS set with the manual typewriters and clacking teletypes seems quaint and ancient today, yet that was part of the appeal. They were very lucky to have Simon Oakland reprise "Vincenzo" from the TV films.

The favorite adjective to describe this quirky little gem seems to have settled down to "cheesy", and I am here take pointed exception with that over-burdened descriptor. The effects aren't expensive, it's true. But the atmosphere much more than manages to make up for what the budget lacked. --That, and McGavin's superb screen persona. He's a hoot here. A Columbo in a painfully shabby seersucker suit and silly hat. He's the original cheap investigator. The running narration is TV film noir, which is to say maybe not as deeply expressive or incisive in it's coining of figures of speech as Raymond Chandler, but we definitely get what they're trying to do. Maybe that's the point with most series TV: You have to work with it. You have to suspend your adulation of production values long enough to roll with the occasionally spied zipper in the back of the monster suit. Taking budget limitations as a comment-unnecessary given that comes with the territory, I think this series is one of the medium's gifts to horror fans, deserving of a place alongside Thriller, Twilight Zone, and Outer Limits. It's influence on X- Files alone make it worthy of inclusion in the pantheon.9 stars. Not perfect, but then what is?

"Kolchak" was a TV series that really didn't fit into any category. Part horror, part comedy, some social awareness thrown in, and what we have is something that I think people weren't ready for. It's a shame really, as I've started to watch these shows on the Chiller network, (I never saw the originals), I realized how different and interesting it really was. Starring Darren Mcgavin as Kolchak a reporter for the International News Service, and Simon Oakland as his always angry boss, Tony Vincenzo, the show followed the exploits of a Chicago news reporter who more often than not, became a part of the story himself, as he searched the windy city for modern day creepies that go bump in the night. The underlying charm of Macgavin really sets the show apart. A somewhat goofy guy, who always wears the same suit, you cannot help but love him. His jokes are great, and the back and forth between him and the skeptical editor, Oakland, are downright hilarious. The stories are for the most part pretty good, and the acting is very good. The 70's were not a *great* period for special effects, and the show suffers for it, but if you suspend disbelief, what you have is a fun series that was ahead of it's time.