In nature, predators cut off their prey from the pack, leaving them vulnerable,
easy to attack. Modern society values independence, the strength to stand on
our own, to make our own way forfeiting not only the comfort of home,
but the bonds of family and community. But in our isolation we become
weak, perfect victims. That was the voice of reporter Carl Colchak in the
case that we call timeless. Can't say it aired, but it was dropped
on iTunes, dumped unceremoniously on February seventh, two thousand and six. I'm
your host, Mike White, joining me as always as mister Chris Tashu.
I would say, you copped my phrase there. Dumped unceremoniously is what I
have come to believe the Nightstock from two thousand and five that should have been
That should have been the subtitle of the show night Stalker. In a world
where your show never airs, This is really I mean, this is the
penultimate episode and it never aired. So great, Hey, at least there's
no tattoos on the wrist or anything in this one. Oh dear god,
I'm so happy about that. It's definitely an episode that doesn't have any of
the quote unquote mythology tied into it, which by this point I don't know
why there's any mythology anymore, because supposedly it was all tied up this episode.
Let's just cut to the chase. It felt really familiar to me.
Oh, it almost felt like, oh, what's that show. There's like
a woman with red hair and then there's a guy who's named after an animal.
Oh yeah, the X Files. It felt a lot like The X
Files. Didn't it feel a little bit like The Night Strangler? Yeah?
Well, I mean it felt like a mishmash of things. My point is
like it felt like a bunch of other things that were coppying from the original
show. So we start off this episode in a park. We've got a
dog playing fetch, and then we are cross cutting with a woman who is
maybe being tortured or something. Eventually we find out that she is having her
vital life essence strained from her or she's going to have her face bitten into
and have her pituitary gland stolen. And if that sounds familiar, listen back
to some of our previous episodes, because we have talked about this exact same
thing before. Just like in the episode toombs the same thing. He's stealing
some sort of gland to make him live longer, and it's at the same
thing where there's like thirty five years just like Night Strangler. It's like,
oh my god, like there's original ideas I guess are at a premium for
this show, which it could have been a good episode. It's again another
lackluster outing for a show that everyone has been telling us is a lackluster show.
At least in this episode, we get a lot of Eugene Bird as
alex Nybee because he's really at the center of this thing because there's this dead
body that gets found. That's how we were cutting back and forth between the
park and this woman was because the corpse is found at the park and she's
got this big hole in her face and Nibee is like, no, something's
hinky here. But the corner, the other corner, because I guess he's
the assistant corner, is just like, yeah, no, everything's fine here,
everything's fine. We're all fine. How are you? This guy,
Aaron Shields is his character's name, played by Kevin rom And I don't think
we've ever seen him before, but he's just kind of wedged into this as
is his mother, Marlene Shields, played by Nia Ferlin, who is looking
really good for the most part. Yeah, the character of doctor Shields definitely
felt like a CSI character of the Week. He's totally not the bad guy
thing. It would have been cool if this had been a character that had
been in the show for a couple episodes, because that would have been like
an interesting way to introduce a character who's already been in the show as like
an integral part into the episode, right, and then that twist of him
being something fiendish would have been like, Oh, okay, It's kind of
like there was a one of the assistants on Bones who ended up being basically
a pawn for a serial killer and I was like, oh, well,
that's kind of a shock. I didn't see that coming. It would have
been interesting if that had been the way the episode had done it. However,
we just get a clearly shoehorned in character who we've never seen before,
who totally doesn't have anything to do with the main villain. Feels pretty ham
fisted, as always with this show, Well, what is his relationship with
this woman that he's calling his mother? Because there's also another I can't say,
a character, but it's a corpse that seems like that was the mother,
old assistant or something like he says my brother, I think at one
point. So it's like, is he actually blood kin with her, because
it seems like he's been with her for a long time as well. So
they show a picture at the end of the episode that would lead me to
believe that it is his mom where it's like her holding a young boy and
she has lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years, right, eating
people's pituitary glands, which, by the way, a tumor or a problem
with the pituitary gland is what causes like acromegaly, which is like you know
what you know, like the Big Show or sun Ming Ming or any like
the big like very tall people andre the Giant. That's what they had a
problem with was their protuitary gland, which I don't know how that equates into
living forever. It's a thing. It's a gland. So we're just gonna
they're not eating the brain, they're eating something else. Yeah, I've seen
that's before three times now. It kind of reminded me a little bit of
like let the right one in where I thought that maybe she would recruit somebody
and then use them for a long time and then dispose of them. But
it seems like the Sun is also getting some sort of long lasting life benefit
out of this too, I guess, or he's like covering up for her.
Again, it's not made entirely clear what's going on in a lot of
the episode, which is fine, I mean, a little bit left to
audience interpretation is normally okay, but with an episode like this one where they're
trying to actually craft an interesting villain, you got to explain it just a
little bit more. I'm not saying completely basil exposition it where it's like this,
this, this, this and this, but like, don't leave it
completely up to just, oh whatever, you'll figure it out audience. It
feels a little sloppy. So, Mulder, do you expect me to believe
that there's a woman who every thirty five years eats the pituitary gland of three
women who happened be born on my birthday and blah blah blah blah blah.
Yeah, that's kind of what it sounded like. So the reason why I
say this one really feels like the Knight Strangler is that There is a character
coming back in from The Knights Strangler, which is Titus Berry, who was
known as Mister Berry and the Knights Strangler played by Wally Cox in that version
and played by Stephen Tobolowski. Here Big Tobo, El Tobo love the Tobo.
Yeah, he is a fantastic character actor. Yeah, he's just fantastic
and everything. Like you know, everybody knows him as Ned Ryerson from Groundhog
Day, but he's done a lot more than that, like writing one of
my favorite movies, True Stories, which if you've never seen it, go
check it out. It's probably not going to be your thing, but if
it is your thing, cool. But he's great in this episode. I
would say he's the best part of this episode. I'm sure you would agree,
probably with a second place going to Eugene Bird, who's always fantastic as
Alex Nibi. Tobo is such that I wish that he had been a regular
character in this entire series, kind of like oh have given the would have
given the show some character as opposed to a bunch of flat, one dimensional
exactly, and it would have been something I guess like going all the way
back to the night Stalker rather than him going rather than Colchack going to outside
sources. Sometimes he could go down to the Morgue, talk to mister Barry
and get some information. That way, he would be like another source.
And you know, it does feel like there is something missing from the show.
And now seeing Tobolowski in the show, it's like, well, now
we know what was missing was like that kind of fourth wheel fifth wheel,
you know, technically sixth wheel if you count n ibe. I mean,
I don't think, okay, so you still don't need Jane in this I'm
sorry. I like the actor. I disagree. Really, I feel like
the problem with this show because look, were one episode away from the end
of the show. I mean, we could have this discussion now or on
the next episode that we talk about this show. We could do a post
mortem on Colchack two thousand and five. But this show has good characters that
are poorly written, that are one dimensional. I think they all serve a
purpose. I just don't think they're executed very well. You know. I
mean, you really don't think the character of Jane has a purpose in the
show. Not really. He seems like he's kind of a weird amalgam of
Cole Chack and Perry in this like he doesn't necessarily do much. And then
I mean, he was the woman tied to the railroad tracks for at least
one episode, and it's like, okay, well that would normally be the
Perry role. I mean, really, in the original we just had Cole
Chack, you know, and you've got some other people that work at the
office. But when Colchack goes out, he goes out alone, and I
think that that might be also the issue with the two thousand and five show
is that it becomes more of a buddy show as opposed to a solo outing
show, which obviously the buddy show aspect does kind of draw inspiration from another
show that Frank Spott and It's worked on, which was The X Files.
So they changed I think they changed the I mean, I know, I
know they changed the dynamic of the show right from the get go. Right
As opposed to just Colchack going out, it's Colchack and Perry Reid and then
Jane going out as well, And so you automatically changed the dynamic of this
show that was a solo man show who would check in with kind of his
other side characters, you know. Once or twice throughout the episode. But
this has become a very different show, which necessitates in my mind, different
needs for the character and those who surround him. And I think Jane is
a good character if he's written better, if he's given more to do other
than kind of be I mean, he's kind of exposition in a lot of
these episodes. He reminds me a lot of Zander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I've never seen a single episode of that show. Well there's our next
podcast, Oh god, Josh weedon Hater of Women. Nobody's ever talked about
that show on the internet before. Another to me better show than Nightstalker two
thousand and five was Special Unit two from the early two thousands, and the
guy who wrote for this episode also wrote an episode of Special Unit two where
it was very X Files as far as the you know, the creepy molder
and the disbelieving Skully type of character. But it was really played a lot
more for laughs, which I appreciated. Yeah. Again, it's just he's
not given much of a characterization, right, And like similarly with Vincenzo,
I mean, Jesus, you're not giving anything to do. Even Perry Reid's
not given much to Vincenzo doesn't even show up in this episode. Well he's
credited, but he's not in it. At Tobolowski has actually given something to
do. He brings a level of interest to the character. And fuck,
we're one episode away from the show being done and we're finally meeting a character
who's worth anything it. Come on, are you serious? Show like this
is this is the worst way for this show to go out, actually giving
us a character who we give a shit about them, being like he's in
one episode and oh, by the way, the show's about to be over,
and oh, by the way, this episode never even aired, so
the people who are watching the show never even got to see his performance.
When we get to meet Perry's parents, which I don't think that we've ever
met her folks before, and I guess her dad as a doctor because he
latches right in on that whole pituitary gland thing. But he's just another exposition
dump character. Now. I mean, it's one of these things where a
lot of the characters aren't given characters. They're just a way to move the
plot along. And I think that that's the problem with this show, is
that it's just flat, one dimensional characters, and Colchak is the only one
who's given any sort of characterization, but even then and feels like he's just
sleepwalking through every episode. And I don't know if that's Stuart Townsend's fault,
if all the other characters are pretty one dimensional and flat. I don't think
everybody was not committed to their roles in this show, because I'm pretty sure
as an actor, your dream is to be on a show that runs for
thirteen fucking seasons, like Jensen Accles and Jared Padilecki. You've got a constant
paycheck that you will never have to worry about not making money. And I'm
sure everyone who is involved with this show, I would hope maybe not.
We're interested and excited in making this show a success, and it's a little
disappointing to me that we have gotten this far into the show and nothing has
really changed. I can say unequivocally that from the first episode we watched to
the penultimate one, it's still that same sleepwalking nonsense that Stewart Townsend has done.
Gabriel Union has given nothing to do, and the episodes are ultimately not
that exciting or interesting, right, I mean it is so by the numbers.
I mean, here we go, we've got the one corpse. We
know that there's got to be two more before we have another thirty five years
go by. We have to catch Victor Tombs before he goes back into his
hide whole kind of thing. We get a little bit of a bump because
as there was another corpse who actually died before the first corpse, so oh
my god, there's going to be one more murder. Right from the get
go, Perry is like, oh, this woman reminds me of me.
Oh, we were born on the same day. I was just like,
oh, my gosh. I mean, just to say she reminds me of
me. She's a very career centric woman who's driven by this and that and
the other thing. Just go ahead and say that, but that they were
both born on the same day. Oh, that's a little much. It's
all again a lot of conveniences as well. And so we've got the ticking
clock and then it's kicked up a notch and then we have to have the
cross cutting between what's happening with Perry and then Colchak figuring out what's going on,
and then the big race to get those two together and have her life
saved. Wow. We've seen this a few times now and again it's not
particularly compelling now, and it wasn't particularly compelling the first two or three times
we saw it. And it also is not a great characterization for the Peri
Reed character that she's always the one in distress. Not that I'm saying,
look, look, let's be real here, there's nothing wrong with characters in
distress. I don't know how you get around that. I know that it's
twenty nineteen and there are going to be people that say, well, women
should never be in distress because that's you know, not helping the female role
casting in films and TV. But like men or women, I mean,
if a man's always being cast that way, it's just it's you're gonna have
to do it for a character one way or another, so maybe figure out
a way to balance it out. I mean, they did have Jane in
trouble at one point in this series. But there's an unreal expectation in this
day and age with the way that shows portray characters in distress should never be
women. It's you know, it's offensive for a woman to be in distress.
Find whatever my issue with this show is that they never strayed very far
away from a very reliable in quotations formula. The formula for this show has
always been the same, very much like the original show, but the standards
in two thousand and five were a lot different than when the original show came
out, At least I would have thought they would be. But I mean
again, maybe that's not the way it was interpreted when the show came out
in two thousand and five. They have so many people that could be in
distress other than just Perry, though you talked about Jane being there, Vincenzo
maybe once in a while, maybe even Eugene Bird every once in a while.
Come on, but yeah, it's trade off. Every once in a
while. Have Perry save Colechack half the time or a quarter of the time,
that'd be nice. It's very one note. It's just it's a formula
that works. But just because it's a formula that works, doesn't mean you
don't have to or want to or shouldn't stray away from the formula and maybe
do something interesting. Maybe have a Tony Vincenzo centric episode where Carl and Perry
and Jane are all in trouble and he has to figure it out. Do
something. Flex your creative muscles a little bit, because it feels like the
show has been treading water since episode one and we're at the second last episode.
Nothing has changed. Do you know what Perry Reid's father's name is.
Perry Reid's father is his name in the show. He's not even given a
character name. Awesome, kind of lazy. It is lazy. Again,
the show is lazy. It's disappointing. We're part of a couple of Facebook
groups and I mean I've gone and looked and read at what people say about
this show, and I was hoping. I was like, maybe they're just
looking at the original show through nostalgic glasses, rose tinted glasses, Right,
maybe this show's actually not that bad. No, I think this show is
living up to what other people feel about it. It didn't do enough to
differentiate itself from shows that were on at the time. Hell, shows that
are still on. I mean, I think Supernatural came out around the time
that this show came out. Yeah, I think it was like two weeks
before or something like that. I think we talked about that and the pilot
episode. I mean Supernatural has taken up the mantle of X Files and by
proxy Coal Check, which is great because Supernatural, you know, it's gone
on for a lot longer than I think anyone thought it would watching the first
episode live, which I know I did. But you know, for all
of the problems that it has as a show, which it has a fair
amount, it has at least done interesting stuff with the narrative and the formula.
There's not saying that this show wouldn't have, but getting into a rhythm
and settling into a very basic formula right out of the gate and not doing
anything interesting or new or innovative, it's not going to get you a second
season. It's not even going to get all of your episodes aired out of
the gate because this episode was never aired. I believe somebody said dumped unceremoniously,
and it's unfortunate because when we talked to Frank Spott, and it's oh,
so many years ago, it was clear to me, and I don't
know how you felt about it, that his heart was in the placed with
this show and through no fault of his own, some of his fault,
I mean, I err on the side of there's some fault in all camps.
The show ended up not going anywhere, and it's an episode like this
that is kind of an indicator as to why that's the case. It's derivative
of shit we've seen before from better shows, from the original show, and
even then, I wasn't a huge fan of The Knights Strangler because I felt
it was derivative of the original TV movie Nightstalker to begin with. I feel
like I'm railing against his show, but like, this is worse, so
close to the end here and nothing has changed, and that to me is
a huge disappointment. So we have one more episode left of this will We
then also talk about the m word episode of the reboot X File, since
it was picking up a cole Chack script, I mean, I would assume,
so yeah, I'm just kind of dreading it. Which one is it?
Someone with Murray from Flight of the Concords. So here's the thing.
I watched some of The X Files when it came back, but I ultimately
stayed away from it because it ended up doing more harm to the mythology than
helping it. Which, by the way, if you're a fan of the
X Files, you know that those last couple of seasons of the show,
you know, were essentially the same thing. The show got kicked in the
pants once David Kovny left, but it was actually having problems before then.
So I didn't watch the I didn't watch the entire new run of the show,
did you No, But I did happen upon that episode, and then
I just noticed how Murray was dressed as coal Chack. And then when we
talked with Frank, he was like, oh, yeah, that was an
unused script. So I think we're going to have to read both the script
and then watch that as Probably we'll do what's the frequency coal check and a
couple of months, and then we'll do the M word in a couple of
months, and then hopefully we'll kind of be done with cole Chack two thousand
and five. We'll definitely put it in the rearview mirror. I'm disappointed.
I'm not upset. I'm just disappointed. I don't know if a year from
now I'm going to remember this show, you know what I mean. Well,
let's just hope we go out on a high note with it. Let's
make a prediction for the next episode of the show. Do you think the
next episode of the show is going to walk us out on a high note.
I will tell you that it's the only episode of the show that I
actually remember and that I remember liking the episode. So that's what I'm hoping
for, Okay, because I've looked at not that you know, we should
put any credence in them, but I've looked at the ratings on IMDb,
and there's only three episodes that go above seven seven point one for the pilot
with sixty ratings, seven point three from Mallam with forty ratings, which,
by the way, I don't even know if I trust the ratings then because
Mallem is just okay, and then seven for what's the frequency cold Check with
forty one reviews. So my hope is we kind of go out on a
high note. My hope was that we were going to kind of reassess this
show from a different angle and come to the realization that, oh, it's
maybe not as bad as everyone says, but I'm going to have to you
know, you know, I don't think there's anything we can do or the
show can do at this point to change my opinion. I think when we're
said and done with this, it's going to be you know what a disappointment,
not a surprise, considering how everyone on every cold check anything has said,
yeah, it's not good. Well, next month we will be back
with an episode of the original series, which is Demon and Lace from nineteen
seventy five. So until then, Chris, what has been happening at the
Culture Cast? Well, right now on the Culture Cast, we are actually
in the middle of Mike White March, named for the gentleman who is currently
currently sitting to my left. I wish you was sitting to my left on
this podcast with me. Mister Mike White, programmed the entire month of the
Culture Cast. We're talking osploitation films, Australian exploitation films if you couldn't pick
it up from the Pretty on the Nose Moniker, So if you want to
check those out, And we're watching some interesting film stuff that I don't think
either one of us have seen. So it's pretty exciting to kind of get
a fresh take on these movies that we hadn't seen either one of us.
Head an over to culturecast dot com. Mike, what are you up to
when you're not on the col Jack tapes? Well, I co host a
podcast with you called Dreams for Sale where we talk about Twilight Zone from the
mid eighties, so starting in nineteen eighty five, and we are just in
our nascent days. With that, I think we've got what five episodes under
our belt, six maybe by the time this comes out, so I can
check that out over at twilight Zone eighty five. And then yeah, I
do a little thing called the Projection Booth every week where we talk about all
kinds of crazy movies and yeah, it's no exception. Pretty soon you and
I will be recording an episode about the taking of Tiger Mountain starting a very
young Bill Paxton Rest in peacebo Pacson. So as always, I want to
thank John Walker for a theme music. I want to thank everybody for listening
to the show. Please hud out over to iTunes were can rate and review
the show and you can make us a lot happier if you leave a nice
rating. Please do. The past has endless stories about tragedies that have struck
those who have come before us, a history of tears. The nature remains
indifferent to our suffering, offering only a cold, hard truth, one that
becomes harder to bear the more we learn to love living that at the very
moment life first pumps through our veins. The clock is set to stop.
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