Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Season 1
20 listed hours · 1974–1975 · ABC
From the desk
How this season is filed
Darren McGavin's wire-service reporter in a seersucker suit keeps tripping over vampires the police refuse to file. One short, grumbling season of monster-of-the-week journalism that later paranormal hours raided for tone. The mutter, the flashlight, and the scoop that never quite makes page one.
TV Flash files Season 1 of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–1975) on ABC as the only listed season — 20 listed hours, 1974-09-13–1975-03-28 from “The Ripper” (S01E01) to “The Sentry” (S01E20). Titles, dates, and synopses on file — no invented recaps.
Desk essentials in this season
- S01E01 The Ripper
The Ripper opens the wire-service mutter. McGavin's seersucker reporter already tripping over what the police refuse to file: monster-of-the-week journalism, flashlight, scoop that never quite prints.
- S01E03 They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...
They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be... is the title as a UFO sermon. Later paranormal hours raided this tone: the reporter still grumbling, the precinct still not typing the truth.
- S01E04 The Vampire
The Vampire is the franchise's home monster named plainly. Night Stalker as weekly filing: seersucker, flashlight, a scoop the city desk will kill before the creature does.
- S01E11 Horror in the Heights
Horror in the Heights is neighborhood-title dread. One short season of grumbling craft: the mutter still the star, the monster still a story the cops will not sign.
- S01E20 The Sentry
The Sentry is the twentieth and last. A single grumbling season closes: later X-Files hours would raid the tone, the seersucker, and the scoop that never quite made the edition.
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S01E01 The Ripper
A serial killer murders attractive women in the Illinois/Indiana area, and soon comes to Chicago. Kolchak begins to suspect that the killer is not just imitating the 18th century Jack the Ripper, but actually is the seemingly immortal killer.
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S01E02 The Zombie
Carl investigates a series of brutal murders--someone is breaking mobsters' backs like twigs. All the signs point to Francois Edmonds, a young up-and-comer in the black numbers racket. The trouble is, Francois died a week before the first murder. Soon Carl realizes that someone has brought the young man back from the dead and he is murdering those who murdered him. No one likes a snoop, so soon enough Carl finds himself a target of this killer. The only way he can save his own life is to figure out how to kill a zombie for good.
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S01E03 They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...
Invisible aliens stalk Chicago, possessing the strength of a hurricane, an interest in lead and electronic components... and a thirst for bone marrow.
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S01E04 The Vampire
A victim of Janos Skorzeny, the vampire that Kolchak dispatched in Las Vegas, has risen from a shallow grave and traveled to Los Angeles. Now she is posing as a prostitute and feeding on her clients, and Kolchak comes to town to investigate the killings.
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S01E05 The Werewolf
When Tony receives a surprise visit from the New York auditors, he sends Carl in his place to do a story on the last voyage of the ocean liner Hanover. However, a series of vicious deaths soon convince Carl that a werewolf is loose on the ship... and only the captain's silver buttons, melted into buckshot, can stop it.
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S01E06 Firefall
A petty arsonist is killed in a shooting at a penny arcade. However, his fascination with a concert conductor brings him back as an angry spirit--a doppelganger--intent on incinerating anyone who could tell the difference when he takes over the conductor's body.
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S01E07 The Devil's Platform
A series of mysterious deaths strike individuals tied to both parties in an Illinois senatorial race. Kolchak, intrigued, looks into the deaths and soon discovers that a Satanic hound is tied to each of them.
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S01E08 Bad Medicine
A giant Indian is stealing jewelry and hypnotizing the owners into killing themselves. Kolchak looks into the deaths and discovers that he is facing the spirit of a medicine man who can take the form of a wolf or a crow, and whose only weakness are his own eyes.
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S01E09 The Spanish Moss Murders
An experiment in dream suppression goes horribly wrong, and the subject manifests a Cajun legend from his childhood--Peremalfait--to kill the people that he hates. Unfortunately, Kolchak becomes the next target when he threatens to unplug the subject.
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S01E10 The Energy Eater
An Indian deity, Matchemonedo, is brought out of its hibernation beneath Lake Michigan by the construction of a new hospital... and soon begins draining the plasma from its victims.
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S01E11 Horror in the Heights
Roosevelt Heights has certainly seen better days. One problem the Jewish neighborhood has experienced lately is a rat infestation, which has led to several fatalities. Another is an elderly Hindu man, drawing swastikas everywhere. These two problems turn out to be connected, and the horrible truth behind the rat attacks nearly costs Carl his life, and forces him to kill the person he trusts the most.
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S01E12 Mr. R.I.N.G.
When threatened with "death", a military-sponsored android escapes its lab and goes on a rampage... or does it?
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S01E13 Primal Scream
An oil company brings back microbe samples from the Antarctic... which thaw into savage primates which go on a rampage through Chicago.
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S01E14 The Trevi Collection
Kolchak is contacted by a fashion industrial spy who is thrown to his death, and the reporter soon discovers that a witch is killing and maiming the competition.
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S01E15 Chopper
A developer moves a cemetery as he prepares to build. But carelessness allows an old evil, once laid to rest, to return again: a motorcyclist with no head, resuming an old agenda of revenge for a prank gone horribly wrong. As usual, Kolchak finds himself in the middle of it, and if he's not careful he may lose his own head.
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S01E16 Demon in Lace
Several college men drop dead of heart attacks, and Kolchak comes to believe that the killer is a female demon--a succubus--who terrifies her male victims to death.
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S01E17 Legacy of Terror
An Aztec ritual spells doom for physically fit victims in Chicago... and Kolchak must stop the last sacrifice before an ancient god is resurrected.
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S01E18 The Knightly Murders
The ghost of a misanthropic knight swears vengeance on anyone who desecrates his resting place... and developers plan to turn the museum containing his armor into a disco.
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S01E19 The Youth Killer
Young members of a computer service start dying... of old age. When Kolchak investigates, he discovers a connection to Greek mythology.
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S01E20 The Sentry
A humanoid subterranean lizard creature starts killing workers at a government underground archive, and Kolchak must figure out why while dodging police and government interference.
More from the 1970s.