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TV Review: 'Knight Rider'
Like a lot of 11-year-old boys in the early 1980s, I was a fan of Knight Rider. Even my 11-year-old, uncritical brain realized, though, that a show about a super-intelligent car and its driver, fighting crime together, was a fairly thin premise.
A quarter-century later, NBC is rolling out a new Knight Rider with fancier visuals and a different car, but the same thin premise. Which, it turns out, is among the least of the show's problems. This is one broken-down hooptie of a TV series, featuring comically stilted writing, wildly divergent acting styles and a general air of pointlessness that leaves me scratching my head as to why it's even on the air.
Check that -- I have a pretty good idea as to why it's on the air. NBC is all about pre-sold properties and product integration this season, and good-but-not-great ratings for a two-hour movie/pilot in February helped convince the network to greenlight a series. The new KITT (voiced by Val Kilmer) is a super-modified Ford Mustang; you can probably expect to see lots of other members of the Ford family of vehicles as well.
What I don't get is who let it on the air in this form. On one hand, Wednesday's premiere episode sort of assumes that you watched the February movie and already know that Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening) is the son of original the Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff, who had a cameo in the movie but doesn't appear here) and is following in dad's footsteps by joining up with the top-secret group that built KITT and works with the government to thwart all sorts of bad guys, and that he's kinda-sorta romantically involved with Sarah Graiman (Deanna Russo), the daughter of the scientist (Bruce Davison) who built the new KITT. Sydney Tamiia Poitier, another holdover from the movie, plays an FBI agent who works with Graiman's team. New to the series are Yancey Arias as another, more mysterious G-man and Paul Campbell and Smith Cho as bantering techies.
On the other hand, it feels as if the entire first half of the premiere is devoted to exposition, as various people take turns explaining exactly what's happening on screen. This is the kind of show that has Poitier's character tell us she's "bypassing security protocol Alpha, Delta, five, seven, three" as she's typing the command on a keyboard.
The show is full of clunkers like that. A few examples: "That's my daughter in there!" "I know. I know. But they have to upload the files"; "Open the damn door!" "I can't override the emergency system!"; and, no kidding, "You have to get his thumb back at all costs."
That last one refers to the episode's mission, in which Mike, Sarah and KITT have to retrieve a package (spoiler alert, although you'll probably figure it out by the third mention of the word "package": It's not a briefcase) containing a top-secret code. The people trying to steal the package all seem to know Mike from his time in the Army's Special Forces, but he has no memory of them. Davison and Arias say a few portentous things about Mike's missing memory toward the end of the episode, but the team's solution to the immediate problem of Mike's identity is so laughable that it's hard to care. The original show at least gave the former Michael Long plastic surgery to change his appearance.
Davison and Arias, along with Poitier, seem to be playing the preposterous action around them pretty straight. Bruening tries to channel Hasselhoff's jokey persona, but it falls a little flat. And Campbell and Cho seem to be in another show entirely, swapping lame nerd-humor lines while manning the control panel.
Yeah, yeah -- so what about the car? If anything, KITT is almost too tricked-out. An array of heads-up displays fill the windshield in most scenes, rendering Mike a completely passive passenger; he spends most of an extended chase scene videoconferencing, draining just about all the excitement from the action on the road. KITT can also change his skin and turn into a pickup, but as written and as voiced by Kilmer, he has almost none of the prickly personality that William Daniels brought to the old car's voice. Instead, KITT just comes off as a know-it-all bore.
It all adds up to a show that works neither on its own nor as an exercise in nostalgia. If your memories of the original show are still fond, there's no need to sully them by watching the update.
This show jumped the shark before it premiered. Wrong car, wrong voice. The "transformer" abilities go too far. Every attempt at a Knight Rider revival (KR2000, KR2010, Team Knight Rider) has failed. This will be the first fall show NBC cancels.
realKITTfan | Sep 23, 2008 8:38:30 PM | #Did the network learn anything from "Bionic Woman?" We'll see, we'll see.
pakopako | Sep 24, 2008 6:30:07 AM | #I agree that Kilmer is a poor sub for Daniels. Kitt and his personality is what made the first show; the new Kitt is just boring.
jbw | Sep 24, 2008 7:15:26 AM | #After the clowns from NBC cancelled Journeyman, I honestly don't want to watch anything they put on the air. Just like the Bionic Woman, this show will get cancelled. I predict that by the end of this TV season, these idiots who are making all of these reallt bd decisions are going to be shown the door.
Pete | Sep 24, 2008 7:25:04 AM | #Just once before it's canceled can we get KITT to utter, "I'm your huckleberry"?
JT Hutt | Sep 24, 2008 7:34:27 AM | #This show is extremely faithful to the original and is pretty much what an update of the 80s show should be.
The original was dumb. This one isn't any smarter, nor does it really try to be. Personally, I'm fine with a fun, dumb show. What is conforting about this Knight Rider is that it knows what it is. This show is about the car and the stunts surrounded by good looking people. Anyone looking for more should definitely look elsewhere. It's an update of the 80s show - not a reinvention.
Brandon | Sep 24, 2008 7:35:21 AM | #i don't car wot car they use, they can never beat the original trans am.
joits | Sep 24, 2008 10:18:21 AM | #I was 8 when I first saw Knight Rider and honestly, all I could remember was how charmingly handsome David Hasselhoff looked and how cool KITT was whenever it makes a supercar leap out of danger. So when I saw the new KR, I wasn’t expecting much except for it to be a decent new show with a little of the original’s old charm. But it wasn’t decent, it was a straight up abomination…an insult to both the original KR AND the Transformers. The script sounded dumb, plot was dumber, the background music throughout the whole show was atrocious, Mike was bland and boring like the new KITT’s voice, Sarah was all about face and showing skin and tossing hair, and that annoying Zoe was just…hoey. She should be strutting the street corners not manning any station that might risk her electrocuting herself. Well…maybe that’s a good thing. There’re so many things that are wrong with this show, but the ones just mentioned are top on my list.
LemonLawed | Sep 24, 2008 11:26:28 AM | #Bad script supported by bad actors…need I say more?
Brussel Sprout | Sep 24, 2008 11:35:38 AM | #i was hoping for straight forward action, no conspiracies. Now I read about missing memory. I have to see what is going on.
anlette | Sep 24, 2008 1:37:36 PM | #I hope it gets cancelled next week.Realy bad story,bad acting.Not intresting at all.I was in my 20's in the 80's Knight Rider,cancelled it myself after the first season.I'm cancelling this one right now on my list of new show.P.S. I hope they wont replace it with another reality show.
Roleying | Sep 24, 2008 8:05:23 PM | #so bad i almost threw up in my own mouth. ugh.
Tivo Queen | Sep 25, 2008 12:32:22 AM | #I love it! It is exactly what I wanted to be - silly, funny fast - I am soooo bored with pretentious shows with pseudo-psychology and suffering slow actors or ugly co-stars! I hope this show is to stay because it was first show on NBC I enjoyed in many years (yeh, I am over sixty, female from Europe with degree and with extensive art background )- take that MR. Potter! Yor review misses every possible point of fun. Get some life!!!
Nonna
Finally, A fun show where theres no reality no 20 or 30 something acting like a 4 yr old trying to scheme against somebody to remove them from a house. This is a non-reality show and thats ok! It bothers some the way Big Brother or Survivor bothers me! I don't think arguing and scheming are good entertainment.
Tom Minard | Sep 25, 2008 4:20:30 AM | #I give it 50/50 odds. Could be cancelled next week or it could be on for years like the original dumb show.
filmeman3 | Sep 25, 2008 4:59:31 AM | #It was a good salute to the original show. All the elements were there. What were you expecting from Knight Rider? It was never about acting. Suspend your belief in logic and reality and its a good show. Don't take it so seriously yall. Too much of that garbage on TV. If you want serious, watch the news. Knight Rider is a good thing.
Jose | Sep 25, 2008 5:12:18 AM | #I watched the 1st episode 2x already. It is pure escapism,though the writing should improve! It's BAYWATCH with a cool car! I'm sick of the TV landscape of reality TV & CSI garbage!
Jack Hoff | Sep 25, 2008 7:45:20 AM | #What the hell happened? The TV-Movie and story line was better. The new series makes no sense and is pointless. It's all CGI and Ford vehicles. I could believe that KITT is bulletproof and can change looks. But I can understand the Mike didn't know KITT could change into a Truck because that's both stupid and beyond physic. What will the car turn into next a motorcycle.
Everything last night told me I won't be watching it again.
Brendan | Sep 25, 2008 9:52:54 AM | #Hands down the funniest new show on television. It is beyond awful and is basically a bad version of the old syndicated shows of the 90's (V.I.P., Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's the Lost World, etc.)
The shocking part is that most of it looks like a well-made YouTube video or online show. It's like Garth Marenghi's Darkplace but as an actual show.
Kevin | Sep 25, 2008 1:05:19 PM | #Well, I only caught the last half hour, however it wasn't bad. For those of you who cry about how it isn't the old knight rider, well, I used to love the old knight rider, however if you watch that today, it is incredibly cheesy compared to todays standards. The new kit is cool, i think the fact that it changes to a truck is kind of lame honestly, I mean there just isn't enough space within the mustand to compensate for it turning into a fully functional truck, if the whole purpose of turning into the truck is to go off roading, perhaps it would have been better of something more simple, perhaps knobby treads coming out of the tire, and increasing the road height a bit, the truck changing just is ridiculous if you ask me. I think that the on screen displays are 100% necessary all the time. They are way too big, and you cannot see what else is going on. Another thing, my MAIN thing here, is why the heck they would choose a mustang of all cars. I mean if you watched yesterdays episode, when he was chasing that blue HOT sports car, the blue car turned nicely around that corner at high speed, when the mustang went around the corner it fishtailed and was all over the road, typical of an american built machine, you think that knight industries who can build a car that does all these amazing things with technology, that can even transform into a truck, could rebuild a mustang to outhandle any other car, to me that was the most unrealistic thing of the whole show. I will continue to watch this show, it's cool, and more importantly, there isn't anything else on on wednesday nights, and mythbusters doesn't start till 9pm.
lambros | Sep 25, 2008 4:58:31 PM | #I think that the head writer has to many yes men around him. Nobody has the stones to tell him his idea of the Attack car was lame. I mean slicks with 15" wheels. Come on get into the now! 377mph on Goodyear eagle tires? I need those!
full cicle | Sep 25, 2008 6:28:40 PM | #I agree with Brandon. Not every show can stand critical scrutiny. This show is about cool cars, hot women (and men), and special effects. Forget acting, plot, believability - if you want all that, catch a good drama or a clever comedy instead. Some shows are just guilty pleasures, and that's why I'm watching this one.
Phil | Sep 26, 2008 6:48:50 AM | #Bad!!! I don't think this show is going to make it til January. Biggest turn off was Kit the Transformer.
RC | Sep 26, 2008 7:15:04 AM | #I quite enjoyed it. Keep in mind that the show is largely about a sentient car. I'm willing to accept a lot more things in such a show that I wouldn't even accept watching Heroes. I thought there were some nice touches, like KITT explaining why he's better than real life talking cars you see these days.
Andy EN | Sep 26, 2008 8:44:38 AM | #Don't you people and the reviewer know this show is not supposed to be based on real life? The 80's show was fun and so is this. You guys take things to serious. I hate when reviewers go into a movie and base it on real life. Its a movie....... It's not always supposed to be real. The same goes for this show. It's way way over the top. Some of you are total idiots.
E | Sep 26, 2008 3:48:40 PM | #
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