So I was kinda excited about the new Knight Rider that premiered this spring via a made for TV movie (if the movie performed well then a series would follow)…well the movie was “ok” but had some obvious flaws (Kitt wasn’t quite Kitt yet, and there seemed to be a few other story deficiencies) BUT the ground work was there. Then the series is promoted and I heard that the plan was to re-tool some of the weak spots in the movie (allright, sounds good so far)…then it premiered…..I don’t say this often BUT OMG it was horrible! Weak story line involving a code and a cypher hidden in a guys DNA…wackiness ensues….also Kitt is a fraking transformer (more on this later).
Knight Industries Three-Thousand
Knight Industries Two-Thousand
Here is my breakdown of what went wrong:
Mike Tracer (AKA the new Micheal Knight) is in fact the son of Micheal Knight (The Hoff) (corny but I can deal). He’s a former military guy (guess what, special ops and he doesn’t remember much of his service….apparently screen writers are now recycling story ideas to save the planet). The acting is on par with usual TV quality I think, but the character is just a vacuum.
Sarah Gramin (Grand-daughter of KITT creator Professor Gramin) She is supposed to be Mike’s on again off again love interest as well as co-Knight Rider? The professional relationship is a bit ambiguous.
The Kitt Cave People - These are the douches that work in the Knight Industries HQ and monitor Kitt 24/7. I call them this because they spend a lot of time running in every entry shot and they are one-dimensional characters. The two I want to call out are the “tech” guy and the cunning linguist woman (because Kitt needs a translator?).
Douche #1 (The Tech Guy) His character is the typical white techno geek with a million degrees and no common sense. Way to go out on a limb writers. His character lacks any depth and I dont even want to give him time to develop any.
Douche #2 (The Asian Linguist)…ummm why do they need a linguist? Ohh right, because she talks with foreign heads of state and diplomats for the FBI working with FLAG (at least I assume FLAG is still the name of the game…Foundation for Law And Government) anyway she is a secondary character that I see no need for. She is also a whore. I say this not to be mean, but she makes several slutty innuendos towards douche #1 just for fun.
KITT 3000 (Knight Industries Three-Thousand)…still missing that quality that made KITT (Knight Industries Two-Thousand) KITT. It goes beyond the voice (which I could accept a different voice for a different car). He lacks ANY personality. I think what the creators are trying to say is “Hey, its not KITT from the 80’s, its a new and different KITT for the 21st century” which sounds fine, except that means somehow the artificial intelligence program running KITT has become less sophisticated in 20+ years. The original KITT was written with a personality (a somewhat snobish one, but it worked and made for fun interpersonal development between he and Micheal Knight). The new KITT is…just an ass with no personality. Another issue I would like to see explained is what happend to the original KITT, in the movie we see bits of the trans-am in Gramin’s garage but no clues to the programs where-abouts. The original assumption is that it is IN the new car but we learn quickly thats not the case.
Besides his personality I REALLY have a problem with the car itself. Some of you may know that I own a trans am from the original KITT era, and I also own a new Mustang (they use a 2005+ Mustang Cobra in the series now…they don’t specify which year but its kinda irrelavent since every year is basically the same sans some option availabilities) so I can judge the car choice fairly. I like the looks of the new Mustang and so I’m ok with them using it (Plus Pontiac doesn’t make the TA any more and GM wanted nothing to do with the program) . That being said, they give KITT some new abilities (makes since, it is the 21st century). In the movie he could make some exterior body changes (grill, fog lights, emblems) and change his own color (again, cool and fits with the idea of the advanced molecular armor plating)….in the series it is revealed that when KITT goes into “Attack Mode” he turns into a rice burner (go here for a definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_burner ) with blue ground effects (nothing says attack like blue ground lights), ugly hood scoop, and 3 foot tail fin to name a few. It is also worth noting that the transformations occur much like they did in the Transformers movie..unfortunatly they don’t look as good or as real. The final issue I think I have with the car is its new “program” as Sarah Gramin puts it…he can transform in a Ford F150 pickup…yes, a ford truck from a mustang…why? Probably because ford wanted to promote more of thier vehicle line.
No Hoff - Insiders say he was miffed at NBC for not taking the show in the directions that he thought it should be going (via the movie). Its been reported that Hasselhoff pitched a similar idea for a new Knight Rider a few years ago but NBC didn’t bite. After the success of Heroes on the small screen and Transformers on the big screen (at least in my opinion) NBC decided to make a go of it…without Hasselhoff. He was brought in to reprise his role as Micheal Knight in the movie for a few minutes. Since then Hasselhoff has said he wishes the program nothing but success and that there are no hard feelings…who knows.
These are elements I think needed attention…now for some things I think they should be doing to make it better.
The writers seem to think that we are still in 1985. Yes they have updated the technology but not bothered to update the story boards. We have become a more sophisticated TV audience (i know, I can’t believe I said that either…lets ignore reality TV for now), we need a more sophisticated story line. We need characters that are 3-dimensional and interesting. What worked then, doesn’t work now. I’m dissapointed that the writers dont want to create a “modern” Knight Rider.
Alas, I can hope it will get better, but I doubt it will. I haven’t looked at the ratings yet, but they are about as usefull as national political polls.