Kolchak: The Night Stalker

In a decade which gave us Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and...well, not much else, Night Stalker stands out as an oasis of quality horror/fantasy/science fiction in the 70's. Darren McGavin is at the top of his form in a series that splits its time about evenly between humor and horror. The only real problem with the series is the scripting, which varies from week to week in no perceivable pattern. An incredibly wretched episode like "The Energy Eater" will be followed by the series' best, "Horror in the Heights," the following week. Still, McGavin and the supporting cast are fun to watch, and you get the chance to laugh along with the writers as they both pay homage to and parody all those old horror movies.