People are voting emotionally.

Don't Believe the Hype

As Good As It Gets

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Calling a program "Night Stalker" and the main character Carl Kolchak, does not mean that this program bears any resemblance at all to the earlier series. The brief appearance of Darren McGavin, star of the original series, in the first episode, seems to have been an unsuccessful attempt to give the new show some kind of official approval. But the light-hearted approach and genuine comedy of the original series is completely lacking. Kolchak is saddle with a side-kick and another hanger-on. Vincenzo does nothing and the actor seems to be completely lost. As I suspect is the older viewer who may have seen Kolchak – The Night Stalker and may remember it. The stories are no worse than on many other shows, but then again they are no different from other shows. The on-going problem of who killed Kolchak's wife just gets in the way. And the answer surely is simply that Kolchak had no wife. The result is simply yet another show designed for late-night viewing, which falls into the category of "If you miss it, you won't miss it." My rating of 6 is probably one more than it deserves, and is given in memory of the original and superior series.

ABC had too high of expectations for this show. By pitted it against CSI on Thursday night, which is now occupied by Grey's Anatomy, they put a bullet in the back of the show. It went against titans, expected to become the cult classic like the original, and lost.This show was not supposed to be the original, as people often forget. The new, re-imagined, and more understandable Night Stalker had dozens of great qualities about it. From the cast to the cinematography to the production team, if given the appropriate time to gain its footing it would've become great. Not all shows were as popular as they are now including Law & Order, Seinfeld and the X-Files, but were given a chance.Which was what this series should've been given. It does have fans who still fight for it and will continue to fight even when we should move on. In the end, we have the DVD to tide us over. But that doesn't mend the wound of negligence.If you have a chance, check this show and see if you don't love it by the second or third episode.

"Night Stalker" intends to update the popular horror series by giving the show a dark, brooding atmosphere. Produced by Frank Spotniz ("The X-Files"), NS feels like a light version of X-Files (without the sci-fi elements) and "MilleniuM" (another series by the X-Files producer Chris Carter). The episodes are ritualistic and a little gruesome (the network censors probably had a field day neutering this in the editing room) which may have partly been responsible for its demise since it was on Disney (ABC). The show is basically a "monster of the week" format. Stuart Townsend stars as Carl Kolchak. The updated Kolchak has been given a Mulder-ish past where he has a dark secret that he hopes to solve and overcome. Gabrielle Union is Perry Reed, a senior reporter for the same paper, who starts out as a skeptical rival but quickly becomes his skeptical partner. See a pattern forming? Mulder and Scully anyone? Along with a third younger partner, they inject themselves into supernatural cases while Kolchak tries to find a connection to his own dilemma. Cotter Smith is Tony Vincenzo, Kolchak's boss and editor.On the plus side, this show was a welcome sight for fans of X-FIles style genre TV ("XFiles" producer Chris Carter heavily based his popular series on the Night Stalker series). It's dark and atmospheric and there are plenty of familiar character actors from Carter's two most popular series. The stories could easily have fit into the last two XF seasons, especially with Agent Monica Reyes. Similar to "Supernatural" in some ways. On the negative side, though the plots were interesting, the execution was choppy and the show relied too much on the darkness and shadows that made Carter's series so spooky. Many of the episodes don't make much sense. As if parts of the script were erased and they just filmed what they had. The comic elements of the Kolchak/Vincenzo relationship are gone. Where they used to bicker and argue back and forth in the 70s series, now they just brood at each other. Townsend was a poor choice for Kolchak. Im not big on remakes and Im glad they didn't try to recapture the personality of the original Kolchak. Darren MacGavin's Kolchak was a casual, outgoing, stumbling slob of a reporter whose open mind enabled him to solve supernatural cases. Any attempt to copy that would be seen as just that: an unoriginal copy of a great TV character. But Townsend does nothing with this role. His performance is bland and uninteresting. He just stands there looking like a bored mannequin. Gabrielle Union is a beautiful woman, I fall in love with in everything I've seen her in but here she's miscast. I appreciate the producers trying to create a different look for the show but this should have been much better.Again on the plus side, the complete series/season 1 is on now DVD and among the extras is four unaired episodes, script summaries for episodes never produced, deleted scenes and commentaries. It's still well worth a look.

I just recently watched the box set and enjoyed it very much. If you approach it from the angle that this is a different show(but with the same name as the old show-which I enjoyed)you can enjoy it on it's own merits. There was some unexplained and "huh?" type stuff going on, but getting canceled after 6 episodes will do that. I liked the leads, and there were spots of humor in the show(as dark as it was)if you were paying attention. Network TV is inane simply for the fact that they don't give us viewers a chance to get into shows anymore...remember when a show came on every week at the same time and was there for at least a year(even if it sucked)? I had no clue this show had been canceled until I saw the box set of the "complete series"...heck, I never even got a chance to watch it on the telly. Oh well, enough railing against the system...a nice little show that could have been something if given a chance.