Knight Rider: Season 1

Back in the day, there was an immensely popular series about one man and his car, fighting crime and evil on a weekly basis.

The car was the star: it could talk, tell you where the traffic jams were, and had a cute red light thing that went ‘whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo’, like a Cylon jacked up on too much caffeine. Race on twenty-five years, however, and you can get all those features - and more - on the average i-phone. So a Knight Rider reboot has to pull a few fancy tricks to get up to speed with a modern audience.

If we were a used car salesman, we’d have to be honest - this model has already been scrapped for parts, as Universal haven’t renewed the contract for a second season. This is a shame, because, despite a few bumps and scratches, this is a fairly smooth and fun ride. While the Trans-Am has been traded in for a product placement friendly Ford Mustang, and a part exchange swaps the voice of Mr Feeny from Boy Meets World for that of one-time Batman Val Kilmer, all other specs are present and correct, right down to the funky retro-style title sequence.

After a brash and slick TV movie serving as a pilot, we very rapidly downshift to cruise control, and a fairly formulaic series. And this is the real engine failure: nobody seems to have told Team Knight Rider that American television has gone through a few paintjobs since they were last on the road. While the Hoff incarnation was part of that noble lineage of programmes featuring a single protagonist surviving a ‘story of the week’ - a tradition dating back from The Incredible Hulk, The Fugitive, and indeed, right back to what’s possibly Michael Knight’s closest cousin, The Lone Ranger, US TV now demands story arcs, developing relationships over each season's 20-plus episodes. Get under the bonnet of this version, however, and you’ll find a gleaming, good looking engine that’s simply ticking over, offering nothing new.

It’s worth pointing out that this series’ greatly expanded cast hugely dilutes the poetry of the original’s title: this is no longer a true ‘Knight Rider’, a lone crusader in a lonely world. Plus, a bigger team means a fatal mistake: the car is no longer the star, it’s simply a pimped up accessory. It’s a pity that US networks seem to currently have a habit of pulling new series as soon as they’re not immediately successful - it seems clear that Knight Rider 2008 was learning these lessons, pruning back on the cast, and even promising cameos from a certain Hoff, and old favourite KARR, while returning the series to its original loner roots.

All that aside, this is good, sexy (we can’t honestly say smart) fun: Knight Rider by way of The Fast And The Furious. If the storylines had been slightly less simple, we could have had something with real drive. Instead, we have a gleaming, beautiful motor that depreciates rapidly after first viewing. Still worth the ride, though.



Extras: The Icon Reborn Featurette, KITT – From 2000 to 3000, Knight Rider Legacy, Pilot Audio Commentary, Gag Reel.

Released on DVD on 14th September 2009 by Universal Pictures UK.

Written by Andrew Allen.