Kolchak: The Night Stalker (TV Series) They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be... (1974) User Reviews

Not the Best Episode But Still Enjoyable

[P_Cornelius · 7/10 · 30 October 2008]

I like planetariums. For that reason alone, I like this episode. For Kolchak and the police's showdown with the alien in the planetarium is a wonderful scene--if for no other reason than watching the old fashioned stunt work. And for all the abuse Kolchak's crummy camera gets, what a twist it is to find out it's the world's best alien repellent. And something else. Perhaps an influence on the episode. I seem to remember a telekinetic murder scene, which takes place in a planetarium, in a film predating this episode by six years or so called THE POWER. I haven't seen it in decades, but it's one of those films that has always stayed in my memory.

There is another influence, too, from the original OUTER LIMITS. At least, I think there is. In that series' first episode, "The Galaxy Being", Cliff Robertson's supercharged radio transmitter accidentally brings to earth an alien being, with whom Robertson's character is communicating. Confusion, hatred, violence and a lot of "misunderstandings" ensue. Supercharged particles, high winds, and technological disruption appears that is quite similar to that witnessed by Carl.

Otherwise, the episode is notable for furthering the Vincenzo/Kolchak relationship. As will become apparent in subsequent episodes, poor Vincenzo just can't win. Even after collecting on a World Series bet with a competitor's editor, in stumbles Carl to give a detailed autopsy report on zoo animals and sucked out bone marrow, just as Tony is being served a gourmet plate of . . . brains that he has just won on that bet! Best line, however, goes to Carl quoting Updyke's description of a female roller derby player: "A hippo on casters."

A bit different from the usual.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 26 October 2013]

As usual, Carl Kolchak is pursuing a story about some creepy sort of monster, though this one is very different from the previous ones in this series or in the TV pilot movies. Instead of zombies or vampires, the creature in this one is invisible and behaves VERY strangely--devouring the bone marrow from mammals and stealing lead was well as electronics! And, after it disappears, a weird black goo is left on the ground! While all this is very hard to believe, even more ridiculous is that in this story the Boston Red Sox are playing the Chicago Cubs in the World Series!! While you never learn who wins this impossible series, you do learn who, or what, is behind all the weird deaths and thefts.

This is a bit better than usual for the show because it manages to be quite different and so it breathes some new life into an otherwise repetitive formula. Well worth seeing and appropriately creepy.

A lesser episode but still fairly enjoyable.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 21 June 2012]

Darren McGavin is as fun as ever as headstrong investigative reporter Carl Kolchak, but the character has a less effective story than usual. The elements are there, and they are all somewhat intriguing: dead animals, dead people, killed by someone or something whom we never see, weird black goop left behind, a silent explosion, lead ingots vanishing into thin air, and the theft of electronic "guts". One rightly has to wonder what the deal is, and Kolchak is the only one to learn what's really going on.

Allen Baron, having also directed the debut episode, 'The Ripper', returns for this one, and keeps things humming along nicely, but there are certain problems here, chiefly that the humor is never as funny nor the horror as spooky as this viewer would have liked. Kolchaks' various confrontations with those he interviews are still entertaining, but lack a little spark. For one thing, neither the latest police captain (James Gregory) nor editor Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) are as fed up and high strung around Kolchak as we're used to. The big laughs would often come out of their reactions, especially Vincenzos'. Good old Gordy the Ghoul (John Fiedler) is back, but he doesn't have too much to do.

What *does* add a bit of spark to the episode is the banter between McGavin and veteran character actress Mary Wickes, playing Dr. Bess Winestock. Her delivery is great; she can definitely hold her own alongside her exuberant co-star. Jack Grinnage is once again great as Ron Updyke, and it *is* fun to see *him* interact with Kolchak as the latter kindly reminds him of a debt owed. The audience can also have fun spotting the familiar faces in small roles: Dick Van Patten as an angry citizen, Phil Leeds as a member of a UFO encounter group, Len Lesser as a policeman, and Fritz Feld as a waiter.

Overall, this sizes up as watchable but not inspired, and that weird title is just the first indicator.

Six out of 10.

My favorite of the series, quit imaginative and unique, very X-files like.

[rixrex · 5 April 2007]

Obviously, since Kolchak pre-dates X-files, the influence is in the direction of Kolchak to X-files, and this episode is the one that bears that influence the most. A unique storyline in regards to the type of alien visitors and what their purpose is in visiting Earth, and the eventual discovery of these invisible invaders existence makes this my favorite of the series. As always, Kolchak's determined spirit and undeterred methods make for the typical conflict with authorities, but in this one, that conflict is much more subdued and believable as the police bosses are as much in the dark as he, and prone to benefit from what Kolchak learns on his own. Also, there are not the silly aspects that mar some of the other Kolchak episodes present here, so this one is totally enjoyable.

The year the Cubs won the pennant?

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 13 September 2017]

This particular episode anticipated by two generations the Chicago Cubs getting into a World Series. But poor Carl Kolchak has to miss it because of some strange happenings.

The Lincoln Park Zoo has had several of its animals killed and the autopsies reveal that they've had the bone marrow sucked out of them. Electronic parts are being stolen as well and soon people are turning up dead and marrowless.

The damage is being down by an invisible invader from outer space. You cannot see him, but he makes his presence felt and you can see the damage he causes.

Jane Withers stands out among the guest cast as a police lab doctor and John Fiedler back again as the rapacious coroner.

I do so love how Darren McGavin figures out the reason for all these strange happenings and puts the explanation out there. Can't tell it, you have to see it.

Superior sci-fi/horror entry in the series

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 14 January 2010]

Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin in typically fine and robust form) just can't seem to stay out of trouble; this time the intrepid, if bullheaded reporter stumbles across a race of lethal invisible aliens who feed on bone marrow. Director Allen Baron, working from a clever and compelling script by Rudolph Borchert, does an expert job of creating a supremely eerie and enigmatic atmosphere while maintaining a steady pace throughout. Simon Oakland as the hapless Tony Vincenzo, Jack Grinnage as the wimpy Ron Updyke, John Fiedler as jolly coroner Gordy Spangler, and Carol Ann Susi as irritating eager beaver rookie Monique Mermelstein all make welcome return appearances. Moreover, there are sturdy supporting contributions from Mary Wickes as the waspish Dr. Bess Winestock, James Gregory as the gruff Captain Quill, and Dick Can Patten as the baffled Alfred Brindle. Eduardo Ricci's polished cinematography makes nifty occasional use of freeze frames and slow motion. Gil Melle's lively shuddery score does the spine-tingling trick. A tense and thrilling set piece in a planetarium rates as a definite highlight. The climax is also quite gripping and exciting. A worthy episode.

Kolchak: "The Have Been, They Are, They will be..."

[Wuchakk · 6/10 · 16 April 2018]

PLOT: Kolchak connects the dots when a cache of lead ingots and various gizmos are stolen by something eerie and invisible, which may not be of this Earth. To complicate matters, animals and humans are found dead, stripped of their bone marrow.

COMMENTARY: Both Gordy the Ghoul (John Fiedler) and Monique (Carol Ann Susi) return for their second of three appearances on the show. More importantly, the plot introduces an intriguing alien element. The final act includes an Observatory sequence and one involving a UFO. You can see how the show inspired The X-Files twenty years later.

Glaring Mistaken World Series Rererence

[mikesinclair-30063 · 8/10 · 28 October 2018]

Early in the episode Kolchak expresses his excitement in going to the first world series game the Cubs have been in in 29 years. Later on listening to the game on the radio we discover its a Red Sox/Cubs World Series.

This episode is from 1974. Although it was true the Cubs hadn't been in the World Series in 29 years (1945), the 1974 the World Series was between the Oakland A's and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Intriguing Premise Still Less Than Meets the Eye

[darryl-tahirali · 7/10 · 5 April 2022]

With "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be . . . ," "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" goes literally out of this world to find an extraterrestrial fright that is invisible, which obviates the need to use a dubious- or ludicrous-looking effect for the reveal. However, the scare becomes almost a fear in the abstract, and with another draggy third act, this is an intriguing premise that is still less than meets the eye.

On a sunny early-September day, intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak eagerly anticipates attending Game One of the World Series hosted by the Chicago Cubs when editor Tony Vincenzo dangles a story about disappearing animals at the Lincoln Park Zoo in front of him.

Smelling the supernatural, Kolchak can't resist taking the bait, but en route to the zoo, he intercepts another juicy lead on his police scanner and arrives at Raydyne Electronics just in time to see a wall silently blown out and two tons of lead ingots disappear before his astonished eyes and those of the police squad led by Captain Quill (James Gregory), who is buttonholed by four Mysterious Men in Suits.

Are the two mysteries connected? You bet they are in Rudolph Borchert's lively script, adapting Dennis Clark's story, and of course it's up to Kolchak to link the two. Zoologist Bess Winestock (Mary Wickes) is initially tight-lipped about the mysterious monkeying around. However, after Kolchak interviews irate homeowner Alfred Brindle (Dick Van Patten) about the load of presumed asphalt the city dumped on his lawn, he brings a smelly sample back to Bess, who admits that the animals, not "missing" but killed, have had their bone marrow extracted from their bodies, to tell from her own smelly sample of the same substance.

Bone marrow? Lead ingots? Brindle also mentioned that his neighbor's fancy stereo had had its electronic guts ripped from it. And who are those Mysterious Men in Suits who have just confiscated Kolchak's photos taken at Raydyne from Independent News Service factotum Monique Marmelstein (Carol Ann Susi) under pain of IRS audit? Meanwhile, the visiting Boston Red Sox wind up winning 1-0 as the first game of the World Series ends before Kolchak can get to the ballpark.

The pieces come together for Kolchak when he encounters the Raydyne-like phenomena at a planetarium: Chicago is being visited by extraterrestrials--but try to prove that when you can't even see them. A comic-relief scene of Carl attending a UFO group's local meeting, with Maureen Arthur hilariously playing a woman who claims to have been abducted by a "smart-looking alien" who plied her with drink and tried to get fresh with her, spoofs the growing contactee cults of the 1970s, but otherwise "They Have Been" plays it fairly straight.

Once again, however, Kolchak is plunged into darkness for the inconclusive, uninvolving resolution as "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" reveals its limitations, with the less said about the cheesy flying saucer--which may be its own droll joke, anyway--the better. On the other hand, as other reviewers have noted, here is the geniture of "The X Files," on which Darren McGavin guest-starred twice. ("X Files" producer Frank Spotnitz also failed to reboot "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" in 2005.)

As always, though, watching McGavin's absorbing engagement and utter credulity is its own special pleasure, with memorable guest-star turns from Van Patten and especially Wickes as Gregory preps for his upcoming recurring role in "Barney Miller."

Oh, and a World Series being played in September? Seemingly a goof, right? Except for this intriguing historical curiosity: In 1918, the baseball season was cut short by a month because of America's involvement in the First World War, so the World Series was played in early September. In Game One, the visiting Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs by a score of 1-0. This is the slyest joke in the episode. And as Casey Stengel used to say, "You could look it up."

1974 and The Cubs Are In The World Series?

[DKosty123 · 7/10 · 11 June 2017]

It is appropriate that Kolchak is chasing at the same time as the dream of the Cubbies in the Series is happening, way early though it did finally happen, long after this. This is a fun episode.

We have James Gregory as Captain Quill who Kolchak torments, after all of them are subjected to a major blast from an electronics building, and then watching tons of lead disappear in front of their eyes.

Kolchak visits a private UFO group on the trail for this case. He finds out the alien seems to be interested in sucking bone marrow.

The special effects in this episode, while crude today, are top of the line for 1974 television. There are plenty of good support actors here, as usual in this short lived series.

I miss the time of this series, when we did not have investigative reporters looking for security leaks, and instead are actually looking for the real news story. Kolchak never has to make up fake news. Instead, the real news comes to him, like a scary dream.

The sequence in the planetarium is more than a bit spooky. The Alien turns things inside out for everybody. Kind of like the Cubs did, years later when they won, with a team of players from a different planet, for a change.

They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 19 June 2012]

Some sort of invisible force that sucks all the marrow from animals and humans, also capable of destroying buildings (we literally see this invisible force blast a hole through a brick wall, sending police officers hurling in the air) and "stealing" all sorts of objects such as steel ingots, televisions, and stereos, vomiting blobby sludge (a mixture of the aforementioned marrow and hydrochloric acid) after din-din is plaguing Chicago. This is quite a story and Carl Kolchak seems to be the only one on it (sacrificing a box seat at the Boston Red Sox-Chicago Cubs World Series which in itself is astounding!). That is until electrical devices start disappearing throughout the city of Chicago, bodies start to turn up, and the force continues to throw police around, hanging out at a space conservatory, almost killing Kolchak before he uses the flash on his camera to scare it away (or that what he believes, telling police Captain Quill (the usually reliable James Gregory of Manchurian Candidate fame slurring his lines as if he were drunk) who has spotlights put on it, just irritating it into turning over cars and beating up more cops. It might be linked to an electronics company named Radyne or perhaps even aliens from a UFO! Whatever it is Kolchak will probably know how to stop it even if a whole Chicago police force can't. As usual, Kolchak is hated by the police, his evidence and work is confiscated by "men in suits", and his extraordinary story will probably fall by the wayside. If I'm honest, "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be…" won't go down as my favorite episode of the one-season series, and the supernatural terror of the week for Kolchak is definitely not the scariest, but even when not altogether satisfying, Darren McGavin is always a delight to watch. He gets on everybody's nerves, sticks his neck out for an earth-shattering story, one that is too hard to swallow even when it is seen by the police dept, and yet he is left empty-handed. His final scene is hilarious, though, if a bit twisted, as he explains the city's visitors' reasons for being in Chicago, for the bone-marrow eating, the stolen electronics and steel, and the final liftoff. To tell you the truth, this will be considered by me as one of the lesser episodes in an entertaining cult show that deserved a longer run than it got.

Stalking An Alien

[a_l_i_e_n · 2 June 2006]

An alien visitor with a taste for human bone marrow is stealing a strange list of seemingly unconnected items.

On his way to see the first game of the World Series, Kolchak can't pass up looking into the mysterious deaths of a security guard and several animals at the zoo. While there, he learns that the guard had been drained of all his bone marrow.

During his travels, Kolchak witnesses the wall at an electronics factory being blown out by an invisible force that also makes a huge shipment of lead ingots vanish before his eyes. He later visits a neighbourhood, the scene of a rash of thefts of electronics equipment, where a mysterious black substance has been found- the same substance discovered at the scene of the incidents at the zoo.

Also strange, Kolchak and everyone else who'd witnessed the incident at the electronics factory finds that their watch has stopped due to exposure to electro magnetic radiation.

As Kolchak begins to form a theory about what may be behind all this bizarre phenomena, he discovers his investigation has attracted the attention of "men in black" who visit the newsroom and confiscate his photos of the incident at the electronics plant. Carl soon puts the rest of the pieces together when the invisible force enters a local planetarium and begins scanning star maps. When the entity later exits the premises, Carl tracks it with a compass that reacts to it's electro magnetic emanations.

In a wooded area near yet another body, Kolchak discovers that this invisible creature has been using all the electronic equipment to repair it's spaceship. The alien then moves in to attack Kolchak, but he is able to repel it with the sound vibrations from his camera. The reporter then watches as the saucer-shaped craft simply disappears into thin air.

Though burdened with a rather awkward title, "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be..." definitely has it's merits. The alien's attacks for example are shot effectively using subjective camera angles that close in tight on the faces of it's victims. Since the unseen being moves with the force of a small cyclone, the musical arrangement employs the frenzied strains of a violin to neatly approximate the sound of a tumultuous wind.

Though not as frightening as some of Kolchak's other adversaries, the alien's habit of sucking the marrow from it's victims bones is certainly a unique method of murder. This also leads to the episode's funniest scene in which Carl relates all the ghoulish details of the alien's rampage to Vincenzo who is trying to enjoy a gourmet meal. As he describes it, "at the scene of each of these deaths is a puddle, a pile of this gooey, greenish, black bile. It really stinks, Tony." Naturally, Vincenzo loses his appetite entirely when the next course on the menu turns out to be brains.

There's some excellent guest-star work here, too from Dick Van Patten as an irate homeowner, John Fielder, back as "Gordie the Ghoul", and Mary Wickes as a zoo coroner. The obligatory "Get outta' here, Kolchak!"-type police nemesis is played by familiar character actor, James Gregory.

While we never actually see the alien, director Allen Baron does give us a sense of it's size by casting a vaguely defined silhouette of it on the planetarium wall. Unfortunately, the departure of the U.F.O. is not so effective. To indicate that it has taken off, the lights on the craft simply go out, but you can clearly make out that the saucer is still sitting there in the dark.

The pace during the planetarium sequence does drag a bit, and the horror element in this one is left a bit too much to the imagination. Still, it appears "They Have Been.." may have impressed someone out there as it does bear quite a resemblance to a 1996 "X-Files" episode, the plot of which had unseen extraterrestrials attacking humans and rendering zoo animals invisible before confiscating them. Perhaps it was meant to be "The X-File's" tribute to this flawed, but still quite interesting, imaginative episode.

UFOs?

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 7 April 2015]

Kolchak (Darren McGavin) is witness to a bizarre manifestation when an unseen force decimates a building and causes a cache of lead ingots to vanish into thin air. He soon draws a connection between the disturbance and a series of incidents where both animals and human beings are turning up dead, the marrow mysteriously sucked out of their bones.

We have now seen Jack the Ripper, a man who should have been dead for decades, stalking Chicago. How strange would it be to have UFOs? Not very, in my estimation. And so we have them here, or at least so it seems. What is the connection between the disappearing lead ingots (which fade before our eyes) and the animals whose marrow is stripped from their bones? Not my favorite episode of the series, but still quite enjoyable.

Invisible Alien

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 10 November 2014]

Carl Kolchak(Darren McGavin) is present during a most mysterious incident where an invisible force invades a building, whose wind knocks down the police force as it makes off with lead ingots. Carl then makes a link between this force, which he comes to believe is alien in origin, with a rash of killings involving people and animals whose bone marrow was taken, apparently for nourishment, and it is a race against time to stop the alien before it can leave our world... This episode may well have influenced later series "The X-Files", which used a similar alien itself. Interesting and unique, though alien is once again frustratingly vague in nature.

"... you got a story to tell, tell it!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 14 April 2022]

You have to give the screen writers credit here for their imagination, putting the Chicago Cubs into the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Given the choice I would have gone to the first game and picked up the alien mystery story afterwards. For me, this was kind of a 'meh' program, primarily because it looked like Kolchak (Darren McGavin) wasn't getting anywhere with his investigation. There was the tease of a vampire story with the bone marrow of animal and human victims gone missing, but not blood, so that idea had to be discarded. The sudden disappearance of pallets containing a couple tons of lead ingots was a little harder to explain, but then the story got into electromagnetic fields and a whining camera battery that happened to be too convenient for Kolchak to make his case. If you can't tell, I didn't really care much for this one, and would have preferred a direct confrontation with a visible alien as long as we were going in that direction. I wonder who won the World Series?

The Cubs and Kolchak

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 12 July 2023]

Directed by Allen Baron, who did four episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and written by Rudolph Borchert, who wrote five episodes of the series, and Dennis Lynton Clark, who started his career in Hollywood as a costume designer on A Man Called Horse and Man In the Wilderness, the title of this episode comes from a line in H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror: "The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen."

A killing force unseen has blown into the Windy City with hurricane strength. It kills by creating an electromagnetic field that sucks the bone marrow from both humans and animals. And oh yeah, it steals lead and electrical equipment.

Sounds like a story for Carl Kolchak.

Carl's nemesis Ron Updyke has been selected as the temporary sports editor. And he owes Carl, who saved his life from an angry roller derby player a few weeks ago. He promised Carl a World Series ticket and the chance to see the Chicago Cubs play in the biggest baseball game there is, the first time in nearly thirty years, but he forgot. And now Carl is going to either get his ticket or a piece of Updyke.

But Vicenzo has work for him. Today, a cheetah died in the zoo. Carl corrects him and says that it was yesterday and it was a panther. Vicenzo double corrects him. Two dead jungle predators in two days. Forget the World Series, Carl smells a story.

Carl learns that the police are all at an electronic company and gets there just in time to watch a wall explode and a bunch of lead disappear into thin air. Captain Quill (James Gregory) pulls him away but not before saluting some very important military people. Now Carl is practically dying to get this story figured out.

Keen reporting instincts lead Carl to the zoo . As he studies where the animals were killed, he can see that the bars are bent, there's a black goo everywhere and zoologist Dr. Bess Weinstock (Mary Wickes, Sister Mary Lazarus in the Sister Act movies) informs Carl that a leopard and a panda have also been killed and their deaths appear to be heart attacks. This matches an angry talk radio caller that Kolchak hears complaining about black tar all over Mariposa Way.

After getting a sample of the black substance - and who said this show wasn't an influence on The X-Files - and getting Weinstock to work with him, Cark learns that it's a mix of hydrochloric acid, acetone, and bone marrow. As all of the animals killed at the zoo had puncture marks at the major bone joints to drain the marrow, the zoologist theorizes that whatever is doing the killing ate the marrow and then puked.

At the morgue - to discover what happened at the factory explosion - Gordy the Ghoul is willing to talk for a price. Carl's shocked to learn that Gordy's boss Stanley Wedemeyer (Rudy Challenger) tells him that the one dead person from the factory died from a simple heart attack. But Gordy sneakily reveals the truth to Carl and passes him a cassette tape.

The real cause of death: All of the bone marrow was sucked out of his body.

Carl busts into a press conference and asks the kind of questions that get him kicked out of nearly every press conference he ever goes to. He grills Captain Quill on what exactly happened at Raydyne Electronics and why everyone's watches have stopped at the exact time, how the lead bars disappeared and how the animals and humans who have been killed all died from having their bone marrow removed.

When Vicenzo tells Carl to drop the whole mess - saying "We don't need another UFO story" - that only spurs him on. After all, he never said UFO. Who said UFO? Carl definitely finds the thing, a small metal ship, after an attack on an observatory and is nearly killed by the force when it comes back. Only the whine of his camera can protect him.

As always, no evidence remains.

This is one of the first times that Carl is threatened that someone much worse than the police will be taking care of him.

Also: There's a moment in here where the zoologist explains to Carl that pandas are raccoons and not bears. Believe it or not, at this point, there was a major debate over this. Only when DNA technology was advanced enough to be used did we discover that pandas are actually bears.

Cutt off!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 13 November 2017]

Unfortunately this episode was cutt off around fifteen minutes, the official release just came out, but this distributor that has the copyright is an old acquaintance of us, a low profile indeed, l must to complain, but somehow there's no other distributor who works in this kind of series, so is better than nothing, bad with them, worst without them, l tried to understand so good premise, the missing part is a key to close the whole circle, hope someday l could be in my hands all 52 minutes!!

Resume:

First watch: 2017 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7