THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

by James Jordan

One thing that sticks in my mind about Night Stalker is how unexpectedly underwhelmed I was by the first season finale, despite James Jordan’s efforts to craft an effective climax to the shortened run. ‘Zero Hour’ thankfully, I can say right now, is a stronger piece of work – dealing with and furthering every single mythology plot-thread within the four other (that few?!) arc episodes of the year, bringing them together into a cohesive whole. Despite this commendable feat of plotting, this finale however falls a little way short of being considered as great as the previous three mythology tales for a couple of reasons.

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by Ian Austin

I’m a fan of standalones. I am. I think they can provide an accessible way of storytelling and touch on ideas or themes more serialised tales can’t, as well as lending elasticity to the kind of stories being told. Episodes like ‘Sacred Ground’, however, sorely test my faith in the whole thing. Night Stalker has been up and down in quality depending on the strength of the plot and writer all season and nowhere is it more evident than in Ian Austin’s debut of the series. An interesting, if derivative, idea with a clear theme is buried under dull characterisation, threadbare direction and languid plotting.

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by Alden. C. Caele & Jeffrey Moore

I have something of a vested interest in this outing of Night Stalker as, well… I was originally going to write it as my second episode of the season. I brought the idea of a piece of music that incites behaviour based on the legend of Gloomy Sunday (Google it) and the premise still fascinates me so I was looking forward to seeing what Alden Caele and Jeffrey Moore (in, I believe, his MZP debut), made of the concept. I’m glad to say ‘Danse Macabre’ is as good as I could have made the idea, written well enough to escape the usual uninspired standalone fayre the season has so far, on most occasions, delivered.

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by James Jordan

Of all the second season Night Stalker episodes, I’ve been looking forward to this the most without question. Jose Chung was a character beautifully brought to life in The X-Files and later Millennium by the legendary Charles Nelson Reilly and genius comedic writing talents of Darin Morgan. The idea of James Jordan actually trying to ape these two fantastic pieces of work filled me with excitement and dread in equal measure – these are two of my all-time favourite pieces of TV, bear in mind. The fact that ‘Jose Chung’s ‘Back From the Dead’ actually almost – not quite but almost – matches the quality of those two pieces of work fills me with huge admiration for Jordan. My friend, I never thought you had this in you.

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by Vinicius Moraes

It was inevitable at some point this season we’d get an episode revolving around the Beacon’s erstwhile boss, Tony Vincenzo, and it’s one I welcomed given how little the character gets to do in a fair few Night Stalker tales, standalones especially. ‘Anathema’, however, really isn’t the story to do him justice. It’s yet again indicative of the uneven quality of the show – one week we’re up when we’re treading deeper water, another we’re down when we’re going through the motions. This Vincenzo ‘centric’ could really have taken off but writer Vinicius Moraes fails to get us there.

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by James Jordan

Or should we maybe call this one Zodiac? Yes, this is James Jordan’s take on that great real-life crime story for Night Stalker and one instance where I’m nowhere near close to complaining at this being a massive rip-off. ‘Cipher’ is a great cover of an even greater story, one of the more chilling modern mysteries of our age, of a brutal murderer never caught. To me, that’s much scarier than sewer monsters or soul suckers – the simple, calculated evil of a man, and that’s what Jordan is interested in here. It allows for an episode that, typically for a Jordan script, eschews formula for a talky but often interesting retelling of the Zodiac legend.

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by Chris Haigh

A quite unusual Night Stalker this time around in that halfway through it throws you off the track you’re convinced you’re on, while still managing to feel familiar at the same time. ‘Hades’ felt like a mesh of several X-Files episode concepts rolled into one package and Chris Haigh’s second of the season manages to unfortunately, despite some solid ideas and an attempt to create rounded secondary characters, highlight further just how unevenly written the show really is. Every week is clearly a different writer because every week is a different quality of show.

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Teleplay by Vinicius Moraes

We return to the standalone piece after the success of the mythology double-header and, sadly, once again Night Stalker falls into a formulaic and not entirely successful pattern with ‘Inbox’. Unlike some of the other such solitary pieces, this one actually attempts to break out of the box and take a slightly alternative approach  but I can’t figure out why it doesn’t work – whether it’s the narrative, Vinicius Moraes uneven writing or maybe the unusually poor presentation in places. I’m going to say it’s fusion of all three. 

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by James Jordan

The second of two-parters such as this usually either go one of two ways – either they fail to capitalise on the set up provided by the first part or conversely they eclipse the beginning and the build up before it. ‘Man of Light’, luckily, sits much more firmly into the second camp. While it’s not quite as good as ‘Man of Darkness’, it manages to more than live up to its potential with yet another well-paced, intriguing and in this case revelatory mythology piece from James Jordan which cements this duo as Night Stalker’s two most successful ‘arc’ episodes in its history so far and an encouraging sign hopefully of what’s to come.

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