I was just looking over the new series made for ABC TV. Good god. I was just contemplating what a new series would be like, and then I find it...and I guessed right; watered down, fancy boy crud.
The old series of Night Stalker was a zeitgeist, about being a regular guy, trying to find the truth, which was always hidden by authorities. Much like the times, it had a soul that went to the heart of public feelings, while working in the frame genre of horror/suspense. But, instead of writing to connect the public to their inner feelings about society wrapped in entertainment, the new series is about black and white working together, hot and fancy, to find less then archetypal mysteries. Kolchak brought a pulpy sense of reality to light, and portrayed the seedy side of life without being moralistic. It was Columbo of the supernatural. It didn't create fanciful immorality, like the goth culture today, and it didn't put searing political statements all over. It tried to entertain. And it did. Hence the popularity through the years. Anyone, like myself, who saw this in their childhood remembers it today.
The new series is destined to be another watered down bastardization of brilliant TV.
