Knight Rider returned to NBC tonight in a 2-hour made for TV movie which may or may not end up being a series. But then if you’re any kind of science fiction geek, or if you grew up in the 80s, you probably already knew that. Actually if you grew up in the 80s, then you’ve probably spent the last two weeks gently caressing your vintage, metal Knight Rider lunchbox in anticipation. I know I have been.

Unfortunately, the whole thing got off on the wrong foot right out of the gate. Within the first five minutes Knight Rider gave us threesomes, lesbian cops having one night stands, and brutal death. Not exactly family television. NBC does know this is a show about a talking car… right?

To me that was the real problem with this new Knight Rider. It never quite knew what to be. It tries to walk a strange middle road between being the fun, cheesy, show we remember from the 80s, and being some sort of strange ripoff of the show Las Vegas. Luckily, it got better as it went on and when KITT finally gets his driver and heads out into the boonies the original show used to spend so much time in, things start to have that old familiar Knight Rider hum… assuming you can ignore all of the script’s ridiculous plot holes.
read this entry »