Admittedly, the Kolchak series was never quite as good as the original TV films written by Richard Matheson, but this was definitely a sinister high point. Kolchak’s hopelessly conventional editor Tony Vincenzo dispatched him to interview Palmer, the fast-rising challenger. Initially, it is the sort of puff-piece assignment he resents, but he gets interested when the elevator carrying Palmer’s campaign manager fatally plunges in a supernaturally freak accident. That would be the same campaign manager who had just threatened to expose his corruption. The only survivor to come out of the death chamber is a rottweiler-like hell hound.
It turns out two of the rival incumbent’s closest aides also recently died in convenient accidents. Kolchak smells a conspiracy story, especially since Palmer has suddenly disappeared from view. Of course, Vincenzo doesn’t want to hear his crazy theories about Palmer, especially since the candidate sounds like a liberal dem. Kolchak’s only lead is the pentagram pendant he snatched from the collar of big black dog that is now dogging him.
Tom Skerritt should have played more villains, because he made one of the series’ best as prospective Sen. Palmer. He chews the scenery like a horror pro. “Devil’s Platform” is also one of the best written episodes, by career TV writer Donn Mullaly (a veteran of I Led 3 Lives, among other shows), who gives us a surprisingly tense climatic confrontation, because it involves a temptation that perfectly fits Kolchak’s ambitions. Of course, the devil dog motif is also pretty ominous—and yet kind of cool too, in a Led Zeppelin sort of way.
