Kolchak: The Night Stalker/The Energy Eater

The Energy Eater
Season 1, Episode 10
Airdate	December 13, 1974
Teleplay by	Arthur Rowe, Rudolph Borchert, Robert Earll
Story by	Arthur Rowe
Directed by	Alexander Grasshoff
Stream
← 1x09 The Spanish Moss Murders	1x11 → Horror in the Heights
Kolchak: The Night Stalker — Season One

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The Energy Eater is the tenth episode of the first season of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Starring:

Guest Starring: Jack Grinnage (Ron Updyke), Ruth McDevitt (Emily Cowles), Michael Strong (Walter Green), William Smith (Jim Elkhorn), Elaine Giftos (Nurse Janice Eisen), Robert Cornwaithe (Dr. Hartfield), Robert Yuro (Captain Webster), John Alvin (Dr. Ralph Carrie), Michael Fox (Frank Wesley), Tom Drake (Don Kibbey), Ella Edwards (Receptionist), Bob Golden (Policeman), Dianne Harper (Second Girl), Joyce Jillson (Diana Lanier), John Mitchum (Janitor)

Co-Starring:

Plot Overview

At a press event for the grand opening of a newly constructed waterfront hospital the lights dim and the staff begin to act strangely. Kolchak's curiosity leads him to follow a nurse into the basement. There he finds it unbearably hot despite the fact that the air conditioning is working properly. He also encounters a mysterious force that shakes the foundation and cracks the walls.

Kolchak steals the blueprints for the hospital and examines them at the INS offices. He then contacts the architect who drew up the plans and takes him to see the lower level of the hospital. The architect confirms that there is a real problem. He suggests examining a sample of the concrete, the geological foundation, or failing that look for a geo-thermal vent beneath the hospital. When the mysterious force acts up, the architect flees.

Kolchak learns from Nurse Eisen that patients and staff are dying. All of them were near some sort of electrical device at the time. Later Kolchak bluffs his way into a medical conference and learns that the victim's blood was turned into a tar-like substance.

Carl visits Sarriego Construction, a Native American (Indian) company that worked on the hospital. After some coaxing, their foreman (and shaman), Jim Elkhorn, tells him why he pulled his men off the job: "Machi Manudu" -- an invisible, bear-like creature of legend.

Having enlisted the help of nurse Janice Eisen to get Jim Elkhorn's cooperation, Kolchak and Jim enter the basement of the hospital. The creature destroys a lab, killing those inside. At Kolchak's urging, he and Jim gather up the unexposed X-ray plates from the lab, and take them to the INS offices. At the office the plates are developed and taped together. They show a picture of a massive, nebulous creature with only one distinct feature: an eye, right in the middle.

Further research by Jim indicates that the Machi Manudu probably predates man. Kolchak notices that it only acts in summer months -- it must hibernate in the winter. Draining the lake water from the foundation must have brought the creature out of hibernation.

Back at the hospital Kolchak and Jim Elkhorn have a great deal of trouble convincing the hospital administration that the Machi Minudu is real. However when the creature destroys the cobalt room in the basement, they are convinced.

The staff implement a plan to freeze the creature by pumping liquid nitrogen into the basement. Hoping to get a picture, Kolchak enters the basement armed with infrared and ultraviolet film. As the gas is piped in, the creature moves toward him. He fends it off with the discharge from a fire extinguisher.

He loses consciousness and wakes up safe in a hospital -- a different hospital. Tony is waiting by the window. Luckily Kolchak only suffered some frostbite damage, and nothing was amputated. His pictures didn't turn out though -- except one: a swirly cloud with an eye in the middle.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• During a discussion of the elderly at the office, Miss Emily stands up for "gray power".

Trivia

The Show

• Jim Elkhorn speaks and reads fluent French.

Allusions and References

• Tony claims that in his day, if you investigated a crime, you could end up under a Pierce-Arrow (a car).
• Jim Elkorn says he is no longer a practicing shaman, since they got Blue Cross in their last contract.
• When trying to convince the hospital administrators of their folly, Kolchak invokes the name of Louis Pasteur, and then proceeds to grieviously mis-quote him.

Quotes

• Kolchak is unable to convince Jim Elkhorn to help him further. In a scene reminiscent of an old Lone Ranger joke, Elkhorn says to Kolchak as he is shoving him out the door, "What do you mean 'we' ... white man?"