So: it was the early-to-mid 1970′s, the Golden Age of the made-for-TV movie. From the legendary producer Dan Curtis came the story of a journalist who discovers that the boundary between this world and The Next is very thin… and that horrible creatures are trying to cross it with distressing regularity. No, I am not talking about “The Night Stalker”. I’m talking about The Norliss Tapes (1973)…
…though frankly, if I had been talking about “The Night Stalker”, I doubt if I could have mentioned “The Night Stalker” as many times as I mention “The Night Stalker” while I’m not talking about “The Night Stalker”. Because “The Norliss Tapes”, intended to be the pilot for a weekly series, just didn’t have the necessary magic… while “The Night Stalker”, which had been intended as a one-off, went on to become one of the most memorable horror series in TV history. Why did the one show succeed, while the other disappeared into oblivion? Read on…