Knight Rider

Knight Rider, the iconic 1980s television series starring David Hasselhoff, is back – although without much of a bang.

The original series had Hasselhoff playing Michael Knight: an undercover detective who is saved from the brink of death to fight crime. Michael is given a new identity and equipped with high-tech equipment for his detective work.

However, the real star of the show was Knight’s car KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand). The car was equipped with artificial intelligence, a missile defense system, as well as an “alpha circuit” option that allows the car to drive automatically. The mix of sci-fi technology and “Lone Ranger” style vigilante justice was a massive hit, and it’s now being presented in a 2008 series to appeal to a new generation.

Unremarkably, to a generation (myself included) that has grown up on a steady diet of Facebook, iPods, and HDTV, the novelty of a super futuristic car that talks isn’t really that exciting anymore. Despite this, the car is the focal point of the action, and it can’t help but come across as tiresome and contrived.

The show has a heavy emphasis on action, with the usual doses of (cheesy) romance and drama thrown in for good measure. The role of the protagonist is reprised by Justin Brueing as Michael Traceur, the estranged son of Michael Knight, and features Val Kilmer as the voice of KITT.

The show opens introducing Michael, and his ‘friend’ and fellow investigator Sarah Graiman, played by Deanna Russo. As expected, both protagonists have the quintessential chiseled good looks, and it makes you wonder if Knight Rider is just another transparent superficial drama, or if being a supermodel is a prerequisite for the job.

The plot thickens when Michael is poisoned, and must find an antidote to cure the potentially lethal virus. To do so, he takes part in what may or may not be an assassination, and finds himself in many sticky situations along the way. Luckily, he has his godly vehicle that can withstand bazooka missiles, dodge car crashes, and all but single handedly save the protagonist's life on more than one occasion.

Ultimately, the car is the show's only saving grace. It is admittedly fun to watch the car transform into “attack mode”, where it can unleash its flamethrower or rockets at will, or into “turbo mode”, which allows the car to go fully airborne.

Unfortunatly KITT is pretty much all Knight Rider has going for it. The characters are shallow, and the romance scenes cringe worthy. The plotlines are recycled, and fancy explosions just aren’t enough to keep the attention of this generation’s youth.

There are some really corny moments in this program that completely dismiss the prospect of me taking it seriously – one that springs to mind is when Michael hopelessly professes his love to his significant other seconds before flatlining. You can’t really get anymore unoriginal than that. If Dark Knight hopes to appeal to a new demographic, it needs to bring something fresh to the table, because we’ve all seen the same James Bond style action scenes a thousand times over.