Firefall
Written By: Bill S. Ballinger
Directed By: Don Weis
A ghostly figure identical to famed musical conductor Ryder Bond (Fred Beir) is sighted at the scenes of mysterious deaths where the victims seemed to die of spontaneous combustion. Even more mysteriously, the victims were both colleagues and friends of Ryder. His curiosity piqued, Kolchak investigates, and he and Bond discover the culprit is a Doppelgänger, a malevolent spirit seeking to take over Bond's body that only strikes while his victims sleep. Now the two must stop the Doppelgänger while also preventing themselves from falling asleep.
Tropes:
- Holy Ground: To save Bond from being subsumed by Marnoff, Kolchak arranges for him to at least stay inside a Chicago church until he can stop the doppelgänger.
- I Just Want to Be You: The reason Marnoff returned as a doppelgänger; he constantly dreamed of being an orchestral conductor like Ryder Bond.
- Pyromaniac: Frankie Marnoff was a mob torchman, but one who "loved" his work. Worryingly, it looks like his young son has gotten that trait from his late father as well.
- Spontaneous Human Combustion: Marnoff kills several people by causing them to be instantly incinerated and reduced to ashes.
