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Vince Gilligan’s sole script on the 2005 ‘Night Stalker’ reboot is the perfect stepping stone between the writer’s two television universes.
“There are countless stories in the city, about the lives lived here, about how the fates of others intertwine with our own in ways we can never expect or predict.”
The X-Files was one of the most significant cultural touchstones to come out of the 1990s and it forever changed the shape of genre storytelling on television. Breaking Bad and its prequel spin-off series, Better Call Saul, have very much done the same for television in the 2010s and ‘20s, albeit in very different ways. Vince Gilligan is the common factor between these completely unique worlds, but he also wrote a single episode of 2005’s reboot of the totemic supernatural procedural series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
If The X-Files is about the pursuit of the truth and Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul examine the interconnected butterfly effect of the world, then Night Stalker fits neatly in between with a supernatural story where the truth remains nebulous and at the discretion of the viewer, all while reflecting the cause and effect of seemingly innocuous actions. The episode of Night Stalker, “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?”, doesn’t just bridge the gap between Gilligan’s two major television universes, but it also speaks to his evolution as a writer as he reconciles his interests between pulpy horror and high-tension existential chaos.
Vince Gilligan’s origins with The X-Files go all the way back to the show’s second season before he would be hired as a permanent part of the staff and go on to pen 29 installments as well as co-create the short-lived Lone Gunmen spin-off. Gilligan became a vital voice in the evolution of The X-Files, a series which in itself was deeply indebted to Kolchak: The Night Stalker from the 1970s. Jeff Rice’s Kolchak left an indelible mark on the science-fiction, horror, and mystery genres through its supernatural Columbo-esque investigative reporter, played to perfection by Darren McGavin. Kolchak’s examination of the supernatural is a clear precursor to The X-Files and Chris Carter even attempted to have the character properly crossover to work on a case with Mulder and Scully.
It’s significant that Carl Kolchak was an investigative reporter, as opposed to a detective, and that he’s driven forward by a pursuit of the truth and an obligation to inform the public, an ideology that would later be echoed through The X-Files’ “The Truth is Out There” mantra. Kolchak: The Night Stalker would even give David Chase his first professional writing credit. One could argue that the “Bad Man” archetype that Chase popularized with The Sopranos, which certainly carries over through the chiral reaction of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, is first experimented with through the flawed Carl Kolchak.
The influence of Kolchak on The X-Files makes it quite fitting that The X-Files’ Frank Spotnitz was put in charge of a Night Stalker reboot in 2005. Not only could Spotnitz bring Kolchak back for a new generation, but he could also apply what he learned on The X-Files to help the ‘70s vehicle evolve. Spotnitz recruited many of his strongest collaborators from The X-Files over to Night Stalker, including Vince Gilligan, who was responsible for some of the series’ most dour standalone installments, like “Pusher,” “Drive,” and “Folie à Deux,” as well as several of the silliest stories, such as “Bad Blood,” “The Unusual Suspects,” and the body-swapping two-parter, “Dreamland.”
Gilligan’s episodes often dealt with “signal interruptions” where miscommunications lead into dangerous scenarios. Even Gilligan’s unproduced X-Files episodes, which included a crossover with Unsolved Mysteries and a booby-trapped Tilt-A-Whirl, deal with ideas that exist in this fluctuating state between extreme order and utter chaos, and what happens when these lines become blurred. It’s this rich territory that becomes the focus in Gilligan’s lone Night Stalker script, “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” If The X-Files presented a very ‘90s-centric perspective on conspiracy theories, then Gilligan helps the subject matter mature through his Night Stalker episode and continues to push it even further in his latest works.
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The Night Stalker episode, “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” looks at a troubled man named Paul Krieger (Pat Healy) who’s been kidnapping individuals and seemingly feeding them to the monster–his “Old Man”–that lives in one of his rooms. Krieger’s hunt to sate this demon eventually leads to the kidnapping of Carl Kolchak (Stuart Townsend), who Krieger believes has been communicating with him through coded messages in his newspaper articles. Krieger views Kolchak as the only thing that stands between him and the “Answer” that will allow him to permanently escape this hypothetical monster. Meanwhile, Kolchak racks his brain to determine what’s actually in Krieger’s backroom–if anything–or what internally plagues his captor’s mind.
Kolchak walks Krieger through all of the textbook explanations of what’s going on here, but “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” makes sure to also carefully entertain the possibility that Krieger isn’t mentally disturbed at all, just consumed by tremendous guilt over the killing of his grandparents. In reality, nothing is truly keeping Paul hostage in this house and he’s able to leave at any point, provided that he can get out of his own way. It’s almost the type of revelation that would bookend an episode of Millennium, Chris Carter’s other supernatural procedural series from the ‘90s, one of which Gilligan didn’t get a chance to write for.
“What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” goes out on a powerful conclusion where Kolchak experiences his own hallucinations or dissociative fugue state, which obfuscates any firm answers regarding what’s happened. There is seemingly no demon in Krieger’s room, but the corresponding fear that’s associated with it is still intense enough to end his life when he’s forced to confront it. The “Old Man” wins, regardless of whether he’s real or not.
Similarly, Krieger laments how he literally can’t escape his home and the possessive hold that the Old Man has over him. However, such “impossible escapes” become central for all of Gilligan’s protagonists: Mulder can’t escape his pursuit of the truth. Walter can’t escape his death sentence and march towards financial solvency. And Jimmy can’t escape falling deeper into his fabricated Saul Goodman persona and the Russian nesting doll of identities that follow. They all have their metaphorical Old Men who pull the strings.
The X-Files, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul are all, on some level, about how to apply order to chaos in an increasingly erratic world. Night Stalker, much like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, is fascinated by the extreme dualities that exist inside everyone, only the latter two don’t contain any literal demons. X-Files and Night Stalker actively prove or disprove monsters, whereas Breaking Bad uses science to problem solve and grow, while Better Call Saul continues to explore the debilitating butterfly effect of the universe.
The X-Files would frequently pull from real-life events for its weekly horrors, which Gilligan resorts to here for his Night Stalker script. “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” earns its namesake through an actual accident that plagued Dan Rather. Rather was subjected to a random attack where a troubled individual incessantly asked him, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”, convinced that television broadcasts were being used to transmit him a secret message. This paranoia and confusion ultimately resulted in the death of an innocent NBC stagehand and became the inspiration for Paul Krieger’s attack on Kolchak (as well as a popular R.E.M. song). “I don’t know why it happened,” mused Rather when reflecting upon the attack. “I may never know.” It’s not hard to picture this same admission driving forward all of Gilligan’s protagonists while they fight for the truth.
In drawing from this real event, Gilligan’s Night Stalker episode attempts to make sense of this bizarre tragedy. It offers an answer for the universe’s chaos. So much of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul deal with characters who engage in seemingly strange behavior, only for the collective impact of these series to effectively make sense of their decisions and the path that they’re on. ”What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” triggers this butterfly effect as Kolchak and Krieger learn that they’ve been subconsciously in conversation with each other for a while. The universe has set them on overlapping paths, even if they’ve been completely unaware of the other. Years later, Gilligan would set Walter White and Jimmy McGill on a comparable journey.
“What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” is arguably the strongest episode of The Night Stalker, but the impressive entry didn’t even air during the series’ original broadcast. Cancelled after six episodes, “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” would eventually hit television on SyFy through The Night Stalker’s syndication package, but it’s tragic that most audiences wouldn’t see this standout installment. “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” provides a glimpse of where The Night Stalker could have gone, but it’s also a piece of horror television that’s intrinsically connected to Better Call Saul, not just on a thematic and storytelling level, but when it comes to explicit connections.
The best performance in “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” comes from its central guest star, Pat Healy, who goes on to play a crucial role in the final story arc of Better Call Saul. The episode also marks the first collaboration between Gilligan and director Colin Bucksey, who would go on to direct multiple episodes of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. The shorthand that the pair establish here becomes a valuable tool as Gilligan goes on to expand his capabilities and progressively verge outside of the horror genre.
“What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” ends with Kolchak shaken and confused, more so than usual, and genuinely uncertain over what he’s experienced. It’s telling that this is the only episode of the series that features an opening and closing narration by Kolchak’s partner, Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union), rather than Kolchak himself. He’s not allowed to reflect on these transformative events and the series instead uses his co-worker to process this experience through Kolchak’s fragmentation.
Night Stalker didn’t last long enough for Kolchak to have much of a fully realized arc, but it’s easy to picture the events of “What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?” acting as the catalyst for the character to entertain some dark ideas. That’s not to say that Kolchak would have completely “broken bad,” but Gilligan later demonstrates the full cumulative impact of these destabilizing incidents through Breaking Bad’s Walter White and Better Call Saul’s Jimmy McGill. Carl Kolchak is left in doubt if Satan resides in a light switch behind a closed door, but Walt and Jimmy fully understand that the one who knocks can be even more destructive than whatever horrors lie on the other side.
Vince Gilligan’s episode of ‘Night Stalker’ is available to stream for free on ABC.com, and can be rented or bought via Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, and Vudu
