Kolchak: The Night Stalker/Primal Scream

Primal Scream
Season 1, Episode 13
Airdate	January 17, 1975
Written by	Bill S. Ballinger, David Chase
Directed by	Robert Scheerer
Stream
← 1x12 Mr. R.I.N.G.	1x14 → The Trevi Collection
Kolchak: The Night Stalker — Season One

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Primal Scream is the thirteenth episode of the first season of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Starring:

Guest Starring: John Marley (Captain Maurice Molnar), Pat Harrington, Jr. (Thomas Kitzmiller), Katherine Woodville (Dr. Helen Lynch), Jamie Farr (Jack Burton), Lindsay Workman (Dr Fisk), Byron Morrow (Dr Cowan), Regis J. Cordic (Dr Peel), Al Checco (Nils), Sandra Gould (Landlady), Barbara Rhodes (Secretary), Vince Howard (Policeman), Jeanie Bell (Rosetta), Chuck Waters (William Pratt), Arnold Williams (Barney), Paul Picerni (Humane Society Man)

Co-Starring:

Plot Overview

Kolchak investigates the killing of Dr. Jules Copenic, PHD. He was a 43 year old bio-researcher for the Oceanic Oil Corporation (OIO) just returning from a world ecology conference in Helsinki. He had been working with samples taken from Arctic core samples.

Helen Lynch, Copenic's assistant was hospitalized three weeks earlier in an auto accident. Kolchak sneaks into the hospital to question her about Copenic. When Kolchak gets back to the news office, he has been scooped by the other news services, much to the consternation of his boss Tony.

It comes out that the killer was a gorilla or some other ape-like creature. Kolchak even gets a photograph of it, but Captain Holman breaks his camera. Not one to be deterred, Kolchak clandestinely searches the captain's police files and gets a photograph of the creature from there. He files the story with the wire service, but it is cancelled for reasons unknown. He suspects an OIO coverup.

Stymied by OIO's coverup efforts, Kolchak consults Jack Barr, a high school biology teacher. With his help Kolchak is able to guess that the creature would be living in tunnels. Using flares, he checks out the tunnels beneath the old Chicago Stadium (where the Manhattan Project was carried out).

He tries to befriend the creature but it attacks him, nearly killing him. As his life is slipping away, he is saved by a police search party that had followed the same leads he had, which had led them to the same place.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Several references are made to the Manhattan Project
• Kolchak makes several remarks that are indicative of the suspicious, negative attitude toward oil companies during the oil crisis at the time the show originally aired.
• In the INS office Kolchak makes a remark about Abbott and Costello.