"The Youth Killer" isn't particularly horrifying, although it has some horrible scenes. Everything with Cathy Lee Crosby in particular isn't... good. The scenes with her aren't good. For starters, Ms. Crosby isn't Greek looking. I suppose there could be something made of this (Helen having plastic surgery to match the "look" of the times), but there isn't. Helen of Troy running a computer dating service is a good idea, but nothing is ever made of how someone from millennia ago has adopted to modern times.
There's no threat to Kolchak. Helen doesn't threaten him, although she makes some noises about Hecate taking Kolchak as a sacrifice. But as he noted, he's hardly perfect so Hecate wouldn't take him anyway. For that matter, Hecate demands perfect sacrifices. But she isn't aware that Cubby of the glass eye was "without flaw" until Kolchak points it out. What was Hecate doing the rest of the time? Would she have accepted the imperfect sacrifice if Kolchak hadn't pointed it out?
The episode is funny, though, which is its primary redeeming quality. Darren McGavin wheels and deals his way through the episode. It's hard to take him, or the threat, seriously, but McGavin's spirit is infectious. He never takes anything too seriously, which undermines the "seriousness" of the threat. But McGavin is fun to watch. The INS scenes are fun to watch, and Ruth McDevitt as Miss Emily is fun to watch. She's much more understated than in "Horror in the Heights" with her comments on the elderly. Jack Grinnage doesn't have much to do, but his dainty sipping from a tea cup seems oddly in character.
And Simon Oakland as Vincenzo is oddly amusing. Whether it's his demands for Kolchak's article, his health obsession, and his gesture as he talks about the merits of Vitamin E, his every bit in the opening office scene is a winner.
McGavin's reactions are priceless, particularly to guest stars Freeman, Hickman, Fiedler, and Demosthanes. Hickman does well as a late-series run of cops that are more than aggressive jerks, as is McGavin's reaction: "Where have you been all my life? There's slapstick, like the mayonnaise bit on Kolchak's hand, and McGavin's growing exasperation with it as he tries to pick up a phone and later help Vincenzo up.
As is Kolchak's general reaction to the dating scene. You'd think Tony would know better after "The Werewolf": Kolchak is not the reporter you want to send on swinging single stories. Kolchak's reaction to the sales pitches from Bella and Helen are also good. And Demothanes/Kaz's little interjections are weird but amusing: whether he's talking about college girls when he was a professor, is arguing out of nowhere with the conventioneer about the largest hotel in the world, or how he got a kid's head out of an iron fence with mayonnaise, are all just skewed enough to give some characterization to a minor character without going overboard.
So like I said, come for the humor, not for the horror. But "Night Stalker" often jumped the line between humor and horror. The late series often went more for the former than the latter.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What's your opinion?
5 out of 5 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
