Night Stalker 1.2: "The Five People You Meet in Hell"

Written by Thomas Schnauz
Directed by Rob Bowman

In which Kolchak becomes convinced that a convicted cult leader is using psychic abilities to convince those who put him away to kill their loved ones by seeing ghosts from the past…


Before I say anything else, I must give this episode its due for having one of the best titles in recent memory. This one made me laugh before I started watching it, simply based on the implicit sarcasm of the title and its reference. Certainly, that goes a long way towards telling the audience what to expect. I wasn’t expecting, however, for that to be the only laugh of the hour.

There are two shows on the air right now that cover the “scary” side of the paranormal. Sure, “Invasion” and “Threshold” have their moments, but the real focus is not on the horror aspect of each concept. “Supernatural” and “Night Stalker” jump into the horror genre with both feet and with no apologies. But they definitely take two very different approaches to the material, and I find myself seeing more balance in “Supernatural”, for all its WB mentality, than this series.

Kolchak is one hell of a brooding character, and he seems to exude a massive amount of angst without really trying. That’s all well and good if there’s a character to balance the angst with a little of something else. Perri and Jain seem to be designed specifically to provide foils for Kolchak and his intensity, but in this episode, it’s not really there.

Perri is too involved in the situation at hand to offer any real resistance to Kolchak, and while she initially scoffs at Kolchak’s worries, that disappears quickly. Jain is clearly meant to be comic relief, but he spends most of the episode wringing his hands and watching his co-workers slowly lose their perspective and self-control. All in all, not much room for light to creep in.

One tool that writers will use to establish a “family” atmosphere within an ensemble very quickly is to design an episode around a situation which will force one member of the “family” to victimize another. This forces anyone in the group to demonstrate how they value (or devalue) the other members of the “family” and their opinions. In this case, Kolchak, Perri, and Jain are already strongly devoted to each other’s well-being, which doesn’t quite ring true. It seems too early for Kolchak to be so central in their lives.

On the other hand, the other goal of the writers had to be giving Kolchak some degree of credibility. Perri (and to a lesser extent, Jain) begins the episode with a lot of doubt; she ends the episode with a lot less. Even their boss buys into Kolchak’s theory. How that will translate into future episodes is hard to predict, since it depends greatly upon internal continuity.

But I find myself wondering if Kolchak is already compromised in terms of his character’s future. He already has trouble with the law, and now he’s basically come within seconds of butchering a co-worker after getting her to trust his unusual sense of reality. If the man influencing Kolchak hadn’t been stabbed himself, just at the right time, Kolchak wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t see how that inspires confidence!

In terms of the plot, it was certainly disturbing, and once again the strong “X-Files” pedigree is practically dripping from every scene. A lot of scenes were incredibly dark and even grainy, and one can see how that would be distracting. In the end, this felt exactly how one would expect an early first season episode to feel: rough. This series is still searching for its unique identity. With so much potential, I only hope that ABC gives them the time to find it.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 6/10