So our friend Neil tells me that they're talking about a remake of "Nightstalker", NOT a tv show I ever watched. But Stu does and my sponge-brain knows a bit about LOTS of things I never watched. I knew enough to know that Kolchak was played by Darren McGavin. As I said to Neil, the "Columbo" type; he was a schlub, and older, tired guy, the type of guy who still wore hats. And Neil says ok, the good news apparently is that working on this is one of the guys who did "X Files" - a show again which I never once watched but am aware of and which clearly was influenced by Nightstalker. The bad news is apparently Darren McGavin's update is….Robert Townsend.

Gimme a break here. It's like the "new" Kojak" - hey! Let's find another big bald guy. And this is not about race or things like gender or even age. It's about STYLE, dammit. Townsend is way too cool, too young and too hip to be Kolchak. And actors who are any good of course can adjust, but still, Robert Townsend? MAYBE a movie, but the adjust of style, acting, body type, it just didn't make sense. Just as what made Kojak Kojak was the way he was devised by, developed BY Telly Savalas. Let's DO a new show, not take the hollow shell of a familiar name and change everything about him. Let's make Kojak female. Let's make Kojak a 20 something detective. Right. World weary, hard-bitten, Gen Y. Sure, that'll work. Townsend? Clearly worth creating a show around, but WHY make it what already exists. He deserves SO much better. Give him something that he doesn't recreate or reinvent, huh? What the fuck?

So I googled and went to IMDB to check, thinking "please let it be Kolchak's successor and not a replacement" cuz like, well MAYBE that could work, but Robert Townsend as a schlub? And didn't find anything so maybe Neil might have caught a dead rumor, oh yes puh-leeze. Although it doesn't explain the Kojak thing. I'm SO afraid to hear what's next for them to chew up and spit out in a "new" version. Think they've run screen tests yet for Beyonce as the new "Christy Love"? Too close? Reese Witherspoon? What about "Cannon"? I mean for god's sake….let's not (okay, let's) even mention "Baretta". What do you wanna bet it's being tossed around all OVER Hollywood; can you imagine the conferences since Robert Blake's back in the news?

So we started talking about stuff like "Columbo" and I'm saying "yeah, it would be like recasting Peter Falk" and Stu says "you KNOW they've thought of it". God, of course they have. I'm betting Jude Law. Hugh Grant? Hugh Jackman? And we start running all those shows back then - Mannix and Cannon and Stu starts doing Mannix riffs "What? You say that an old army buddy's in town?" And I supply "And Peggy's been kidnapped!" The only reason for Mannix apparently to have HAD a secretary was so she could be put in danger and rescued by her boss. (Why do I remember this show? Joe Campanella, thank you very much.) And then it's on to "What? Perry Mason has a client accused of murder and he's been arrested?" So then we developed the ultimate cross-over story when Perry Mason meets Columbo. And it has to end with both of their heads blowing off - sort of like matter meeting anti-matter because well, Perry's clients NEVER did it and Columbo ALWAYS figured out who did it. So Boom. End of the world as we know it….
What can I say? We're a little punchy chez Roscoe today.