Nightstalker will live again on the Sci Fi channel – at least temporarily.
Sci Fi is following the successful strategy it used last year when it picked up the rights to cancelled FOX network show, Firefly. Sci Fi will only air the nine filmed episodes already made; there are no plans to produce new episodes of the show.
B&C says Sci Fi will announce the arrival of Nightstalker to its summer season Friday lineup as soon as Monday morning.
Sci FI’s parent company, NBC Universal, reported played between $15,000 and $50,000 an episode for the rights to Nightstalker. This ending is a fitting, if ironic, twist to the Nightstalker story. Just last year, ABC and Touchstone Television bought remake rights to the series from NBC Universal based on the failed 1970s TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
After it went into production, ABC aired just six episodes of the X-Files-flavored Nightstalker in the deadly timeslot of 9 p.m. on Thursdays. It was quickly slaughtered by the triple threat whammy competition of CSI on CBS, The Apprentice on NBC and baseball playoffs on FOX.
An additional seventh episode is only available for download on Apple’s iTunes website. B&C says the eighth and final episodes of the new Nightstalker also will appear on video iPods well before the series ports over to the Sci Fi channel this summer.
