Knight Rider (2008) Review

iTunes is offering a free episode of the new "Knight Rider" television series. So, I took the bait just to see how it is. The episode I saw is called "A Knight In Shining Armor."

I came away sorely disappointed. Even with my low expectations.


Let's start with the good points. Two actors who stuck out to me: Bruce Davison and Sydney Poitier.

Unfortunately, neither of them had much screen time in this episode. And Poitier doesn't have a juicy character like Jungle Julia in "Deathproof." The acting doesn't get much better than those two.

The actor playing the lead can barely hold his own, much less the entire television series. At least David Hasselhoff was a TV show veteran from "The Young And The Restless" in the first go-around. And this Mike is a more troubled soul. What little personality he has is wasted in one-liner conversations with K.I.T.T.


Speaking of K.I.T.T. , Val Kilmer has nothing on William Daniels (the original voice of K.I.T.T.). Yes, Kilmer's career has descended to doing voice-overs of a car. Unfortunately, he's using that same robotic voice he employed in "Batman Forever." What made Daniels so good in the role of K.I.T.T. is that he didn't try to sound like a computer. He used his normal voice which made K.I.T.T. seem more human. Kilmer sounds like a turn-by-turn GPS device. Even the one in my car sounds better than him.


And, lastly the choice of a Ford Mustang Cobra as the K.I.T.T. car. At least the Pontiac Thunderbird was a hot and classy car in the early 80s. Just to put it plainly, the Mustang is UGLY. And it doesn't exude futurism or hotness. Any black car with a red strobe doesn't make it K.I.T.T. Ford must have paid a high price to get their Mustang to be the K.I.T.T. car.

In fact, a really hot car turned up in this episode that put the Mustang to shame. A blue Spyker C8 Spyder, similar to the one pictured here, made an appearance. The car door hinges upwards, which is reminiscent of a Lamborghini. It even outraced the Mustang in the episode. Spyker is a Dutch automaker.


In the end, I think the show is trying too hard to be an ensemble cast like "24," "Lost," "Heroes," and "Battlestar Galactica." And there are many weak links in the cast.


What made the original show so popular was its simplicity: Michael Knight & K.I.T.T. That's all that you really need.