A decade from now, if you wanted an encyclopedic list of everything wrong with television in 2008, you'll need to look no further than NBC's back door pilot movie Knight Rider.
The original series aired on NBC from 1982 to 1986, and quite frankly, it hasn't aged well. Cheap production values, unsophisticated plots, and David Hasselhoff combined to create some first-rate cheese. Still, it was reasonably good-natured and just sophisticated enough to make every boy born between 1970 and 1974 drool over that wicked cool car and tune in every week.
Unfortunately, over the last twenty years, the bar has been raised for both television action and science fiction shows. And ironically enough, NBC/Universal's Battlestar Galactica is the current high water mark for science fiction (a series also reconstructed from the ashes of a twenty-year-old series created by Glen A. Larson). Even if you only count Knight Rider as half science fiction, it now is unquestionably the worst piece of sci-fi American television has seen in a long, long time, replacing the old title holder of last fall's Bionic Woman
It takes less than sixty seconds to parse the lack of subtlety, imagination, or creative inspiration behind Knight Rider 2008. An old man, living in a house chock full of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms in the world casually lets a menacing pair of strangers walk into his house after a sudden power outage. This isn't just a failure of logic — the suspension of disbelief required to make this work would require your central nervous system to shut down completely. But it gets worse when the camera work - all medium shots and unrevealing pans - suddenly goes hand-held and leers into the face of a bad guy, using a dutch angle framing that went out of fashion when the first Knight Rider aired.
In short order, we meet a random lesbian/FBI agent; a brilliant scientist with hypnotically shiny lip gloss; and a tousle-haired ex-Army Ranger/race car driver who seems to spend his time having threesomes. When the most well-rounded, believable, and engaging character is a solar-powered morphing Ford Mustang voiced by Val Kilmer, you're watching a show that is running on fumes.
What's worse is that the clichés haven't really started piling up yet. The brilliant scientist in the opening turns out to - gasp - be a body double! Which gets revealed in a monochromatic, jumpy-camera flashback! The ex-Army Ranger (vaguely played by Justin Bruening) has a shocking family secret! And he's a big-stakes poker player! And he just happens to have harbored romantic feelings for the scientist's ultra-foxy daughter (Deanna Russo)! Who was heartbroken he left her years ago! And the local sheriff is in league with the villains! Who are a near omnipotent, Halliburton-inspired "private security company"!
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - jeff
[Personal attack deleted]
What did NBC turn you down for the role of the new Michael Knight or something? Knight Rider kicked ass in 1982, and the sequel kicks just as much ass. You CLEARLY didn't grow up watching the original series, otherwise you wouldn't have all these self-righteous uppity things to say about the new show. Take it for what it is. Don't exect stellar acting -- the original was no different. Don't expect artisitic camera work -- no one but you gives a shit. They just want to see KITT talk smack and kick ass just like he did 25 years ago. This series is going to be just as awesome as the original, which you would realise if you took your head out of your ass for 30 seconds.
2 - Chris Beaumont
Wow, Jeff. Angry much? It sounds like you're a little too close to the project, and it isn't a series yet. Do you work for them?
I enjoyed it, but it wasn't great. I'd like to see some more.
3 - Jordan Richardson
If hipster lesbianism is wrong, I don't want to be right.
4 - Jet in Columbus
Jeff, very good article, and I agree completely. When KR first came out, I loved it so much just for the camp and that Pontiac. So much so that I I actually bought an early VCR so I could record and save every episode. Later I bought all the VHSs and then the DVDs.
Considering that you didn't even meet the main character in any kind of depth until after half the show was over, and the abysmal first half was devoted to her whining in the passenger seat the whole time, I spent that first hours yelling shut-up damn it and get to some kind of story.
Hasselhof looked like a badly preserved funeral home cadaver.
To be fair I watched the whole thing all the way through to "Give it a Chance". I won't be watching the series.
The point of KRI was to drool for the black TRANS AM that could leap over trains and semis in a single bound. According to several websites the Mustang KITT doesn't even turbo-boost! They didn't even keep the watch communicator/scanner.
What's worse is that kids who saw this before seeing the original will think the mustang is better... groan
5 - El Bicho
"Battlestar Galactica is the current high water mark for science fiction"
Considering the flaws within BG, that means the mark isn't too high.
6 - Jet in Columbus
Is it my imagination, or do we have two different reviews of Knight Rider under the same title?
7 - Sam
Hey Jeff, I loved Knight Rider in 1982. But in 1982 I wasn't old enough to appreciate Sh!tty story lines and TERRIBLE acting.
Point being, i would rather stick my face in a meat grinder than watch the 2008 Ford Mustang KITT Knight Rider again. i almost feel like its necessary to defrag my DVR if there was such a thing to get any remnants of that show off.
A. it was a real long Ford Commercial (which is why i wasn't crazy about Transformers)
B. My Rotweiller and the neighbors Lab make more interesting and believable characters
C. My 6 year old nephew makes visual effects more compelling with imovie.
I was real disappointed it seemed very thrown together. It sucked!
8 - Anthony
I think the movie was great. Everyone is complaining about how the the new KITT didn't do alot of things that the old KITT did, the storyline and how the new car is Mustang. Last time i checked Trans Am aren't made anymore. KITT is about American Muscle Cars not Pontiacs. This will be the third time KITT has a diffrent bodystyle and the first two cars were American muscle cars. Give the movie a break, nobody wants to know all of what the car can do revealed in just two hours because then it leaves nothing surprising for the new show. The storyline was good and again there is no way to tie four season worth of questions into two hours. So give the show a chance and if you don't like it keep your worthless opinions to yourself and don't watch it.
9 - Sterfish
I recorded the movie and I watched it tonight. This review is, unfortunately, spot on.
I was a huge fan of the show as a kid and always watched the reruns. The acting and writing were bad in this new version and it didn't help that there were commercial breaks everywhere you looked. The pace was just lethargic and parts of it were insufferably boring.
If they do a series version, I am hopeful that it will be better. They'll need some decent writers and a good showrunner to be able to make everyone forget this movie.
10 - Jeffrey
First - thanks for the compliments, all. They're appreciated!
Second - I'm disappointed that the personal attack was deleted. For the record, I was called a 'dumbass', which is an unimaginative put-down in perfect keeping with the rest of that artless critique. Bring that to my own website, if you want, but don't expect "dumbass" to carry much weight.
Third - A disclosure... I held back on the Ford hate because I'm from a Ford family, and I learned to drive in a 1987 5-speed, 5.0 black Mustang. Even with all that forgiveness in my heart, I was mortally embarrassed for the FoMoCo for backing this pablum.
However, for all the accusations that the show was one huge commercial for Ford, better buckle your seatbelts, because we're going to be seeing an awful lot more of this in the upcoming years.
TiVo and DVRs are destroying the commercial sponsored business model of television faster than anyone could have predicted, and both advertisers and networks are scrambling for new solutions. And right now, this kind of integrated product-branding is one of the most likely solutions. And Ford is out in the forefront of branding television shows - they've sponsored commercial-free hours of '24', and a few other programs as well. It's a throwback to the early days of television in many ways, and I don't know if it's any worse than stopping a show every 12 minutes so that advertisers can hurl 8 other pitches at you.
Lastly - There's just no excuse for workmanship this poor, on any network. Take it for what it is? An ineptly executed piece of twaddle? There was no ass-kicking anywhere on display. The bulletproof effect looked like an effects house demo. The cliffhangers were ridiculous, and there was zero "man and his smart ass talking car" action which is what Knight Rider should be all about!
11 - Jet in Columbus
Amen Jeff
12 - Christopher Rose
"Battlestar Galactica is the current high water mark for science fiction"
Except for "Stargate", "Stargate Atlantis", "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", "Andromeda" and "Farscape", to name just six!
13 - TSBINC
A complete waste of time! This train wreck of an 80's style series really pushed things over the top and right back into the 80's. This program is a total waste of time! Promotion on top of promotion clearly illistrates the main shows lack of attention. This is one for he records and one record that need to be taken off the air. Clearly each year many young drivers enjoy "street racing" killing 100's a people each year driven by teens behind the wheel of a Ford, Mustange. Do we as a society need such programming to help intensify the need for more speed, putting young and old at risk of death, injury to another because they watch "The Knight Rider"? NO! The Knight rider was a bomb of a pilot, allowing you to fall asleep at times and thinking to yourself was this worth 2 hours of my time. Clearly we are sending a strong message to are youth and younger drivers that "Hey maybe I can make my car do that"? Only to make the evening news showing illegal street racing killing one or more drivers! The Knight Rider had its run and died, don't allow this one to take an actual life of another person. Over-all rating 10 being best I give The Knight Rider a very soft 2 at best. NEXT PROGRAM!
14 - Jeffrey
"Battlestar Galactica is the current high water mark for science fiction"
That's current in the sense of 'contemporary'. There isn't anything else on the broadcast schedule that has the same high profile and stylish impact.
A case could be made for Stargate:Atlantis for being a much better current sci-fi show... but BG, despite all its numerous flaws, just has a much bigger cultural footprint.
15 - Christopher Rose
We'll just have to agree to disagree, Jeffrey. I don't really understand what you mean by "cultural footprint", but I find BG turgid, self important and utterly boring. I think it's one of the worst Sci-Fi shows ever.
16 - Jeffrey
No need to disagree, you're right on when you nail BG for being turgid and self-important. It would have been a far, far better series if each season was sliced in half, and if it ended after 15-20 episodes.
By "cultural footprint", I'm talking about the hype, and the obsessive media coverage that's followed it since the beginning of season 2. I've more slavish reviews of one season of BG than I've seen press coverage for the entire run Stargate:Atlantis. Over at Aintitcool.com (which is not an unbiased sample, just a large pool of fanboys), the BG coverage just shoots breathlessly off the charts, and S:A gets a passing mention every couple of weeks. That doesn't make BG a better show, just a more prominent one.
17 - Jet in Columbus
He obviously has never seen "Life on Mars" on BBC America Christopher...
18 - jonis
Hi.
thought the show was awesome. awesome car and i hope it goes into production. cant understand the criticism of the show. i love top rated shows like the Stargates, charmed, BL, LV, Smvl, Lost, HIMYM, PB, Heroes and the like and i think this show has great potential.
19 - Jeffrey
Awww... now you're just poking the bear with a stick! Don't get me started on "Life On Mars"!
That is one of the best shows on TV in the last few years, hands down. It's a almost criminal shame that just about nobody was watching it. There's a sequel series coming out later this year called "Ashes To Ashes", following DCI Gene Hunt in the early 1980's. That might be the thing I'm most excited about seeing in 2008.
If anything good came out of the writers strike, maybe its that the Americanized (and inevitably sucky) version got killed in development.
20 - Josh Lasser
Congratulations! This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States.
21 - Elyse
Truthfully? I was bored by this remake. I sorta remember the original series, and at least it was fun. This remake wasn't fun, it was repetitious. it might have had some edge if whoever was doing the voice of KITT had some oomph to it.
If by some chance it gets a spot on NBC's schedule, well, I won't be watching.
22 - Angel
This is kind of childish and ridiculous. Everyone is bad-mouthing about what a "bad" movie this is. When I was a kid, I liked the Dukes of Hazzard... now I think it's silly, but it still has a great car. Things I liked when I was a child, I don't necessarily like as a grown up. But it still brings back fond memories. My boys are 13 and 15 and they enjoy the old KITT and the new KITT. They appreciate the car. They love the Dukes of Hazzard. They love the Fall Guy. They love the Coyote on Hardcastle and McCormick. You people bad-mouthing and arguing your opinions is silly. It's just that... YOUR opinion. And everyone is entitled to one. It's just the loud mouths who feel a need to go on and on telling everyone what their opinion is. Guess what... we don't care. It's a movie for goodness sakes... deal with it.
23 - Jet in Columbus
Angel, it can be explained simply, what if the updated Dukes of Hazzard movie's car was a Mustang?
24 - Chris
You hit the nail on the head with this review. I agree completely! I loved Knight Rider as a kid, but watching reruns as an adult I have to cringe & wonder how I used to like the show. I will definitely not watch the series.
25 - David R
The new Version of Knight Rider would never really meet upto the Original. Yes looking at the Original version you would say its crap. But that was the fun thing. Yes the Hoff couldnt really act. But there seemed to be a great bond with Kitt and Michael. They worked well off each other. On Kitt its self. Big no no. Firstly the Red Scanner was all WRONG. Secondly the interior of the New Kitt looked just wrong. Oh look a sat nav as a talking modulator. The Original Dash looked more futuristic! And Pontiac only killed of the Firebird in 2001. They could have used that model. At least it would be true to the Original. The Morphing of the new Kitt was cool. But hang on, why does the new Kitt need to self repair when the old Kitt didnt get damaged from bullets or crashes. Hmmm seems the Orignal had better tech!!! Oh and one more thing, they Killed the Knight Rider Music! Might aswell have just used something else. In conclusion, all the fabric of the Original seems to have been lost.