Here's one from the seventies, Kolchak goes up against some aliens from outer space this time! Can you believe it? A sci-fi episode! There are tie-ins with the movies, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, ISLAND OF TERROR and THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, along with some red herrings to confuse things a bit... Confuse everyone except Carl, that is.
Well, the action starts when Kolchak gets a lead and he heads over to Raydyne Electronics where the police have surrounded the place. So, what's the big deal?
Well, everything's going haywire there! The damn wall is exploding and a very strong wind blows the cops around like they're nothing! I'd bet the stuntmen had a hoot working on this one, they're flying all over the goddamn place!
The wall collapses in one spot, revealing...
Ingots of lead!!.. As they all watch, the lead disappears into thin air.
Another lead finds Kolchak at the house of Dick Van Patten. Seems like he found a pile of stinky dark stuff, and the city came by and picked it up.
Carl finds a hunk of it on the lawn as he's leaving and takes it with him.
But then, the owner of warehouse full of electronic equipment gets to meet the aliens and goes missing along with some of the items...
Kolchak wants Dr. Winestock at the crime lab (played by Mary Wickes) to analyze the piece of material he found, she ends up spilling the beans, they already know what it's made of... Hydrochloric acid, acetone and bone marrow!
At the morgue, Carl and his pal Gordy (John Fielder) make their exchange and Kolchak's on his way to listening to the tape with the description of the man during his autopsy, he had NO BONE MARROW!!
Then we head over to Griffith Observatory to give things that needed sci-fi feel...
Kiochak wanders in and sees the dead security guard, without his bone marrow. After figuring out that the aliens are invisible, he heads out to find more clues.
Kolchak is driving in his Mustang when the engine cuts out, then his dashboard compass starts spinning wildly and explodes!! He gets out of the car and goes exploring. He finds a flying saucer and goes up to it, and touches it.
The devilish wind comes up again and Carl is swept aside, he watches as the door to the ship opens up, and after the door closes, the wind subsides. Then, the craft rises up and disappears into the night sky.
Carl concludes that the aliens were just LOST IN SPACE! Well, there you go, what a whale of a tale! We will be back on Wednesday with more cool junk, just for you!!
Great synopsis. I just saw this one again recently and really like it, though the observatory scene drags on too long. James Gregory brings the full Inspector Luger vibe to his role as this week's Kolchak-hating cop. I liked your Lost in Space line. Yeah, Carl closes with a fun quip that the aliens got lost and stopped by earth for a map and a snack. On that note, good thing Dick Van Patten didn't have that houseful of kids yet as eight would surely have been enough for a Thanksgiving feast (with Nicholas as an appetizer!).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Gary, I have to apologize that I didn't include a still from the zoo with the twisted bars, Blogger was so buggy that I had to ditch a few stills, which would have been the QUATERMASS XPERIMENT tie in-
ReplyDeleteI had a friend back in the days when KOLCHAK was still running in prime-time, and I was selling Super 8 film in the camera department of your local K-Mart. Sometimes I wouldn't get home in time to watch KOLCHAK, so my friend would tell me about the latest episode, and tell me the title (we didn't even have VHS tape VCRs to record TV shows in those days), so he told me this one was called IT WAS AND IT COULD HAVE BEEN, a crazy mangling of the real title of course. It took me YEARS to find out if this was a real episode, or a dream fantasy of his, fueled by his use of the green stuff! LOL!
ReplyDelete