Another rgbFilter Review: Knight Rider

Wednesday nights, 8:00 PM Eastern, NBC (Global) (official site)

If you’re of a similar age to mine, then you remember being transfixed in the living room on any given weeknight watching what would become some of the most iconic characters of your adult life being introduced to the world for the first time.

There was B.A. Barracus of the A-Team, Remington Steele, MacGyver, and of course, my personal favourite, KITT from Knight Rider.

The thing I liked most about Knight Rider was that it was magical. It had a gestalt that no other show could touch. It came along at just the right time, when technology was just about to explode, and everything about it carried this sense of wonder that no one could explain.

These days, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who is not, at least on some level, familiar with the limits of technology, and that, fundamentally, is why the new Knight Rider series fails.

This is not to say that the story of a man and his metamorphic talking supercar does not come up short in nearly other department, as well. Because it does.

From the opening sequence, it’s clear that producers Gary Scott Thompson, Dave Bartis, Doug Liman, and Matt Pyken would love nothing more than to modernize the original story but still try to keep that magical element. Unfortunately, they, along with director David Solomon, approach this task with all the grace and panache of Johnny Knoxville standing naked in Yankee Stadium farting “the star spangled banner” into a microphone.

During the scene, our intrepid and flawed hero Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening) is trying to recover some “package” while rescuing his super-hot but also super-useless partner Sarah Graiman (Deanna Russo) who’s been captured for some reason. While all this is going on, KITT is out in the parking lot being surrounded by guards. When they get a little too close for KITT’s liking, he orders them back, and one guard exclaims “Hey, man, the car’s talking to us!” Another guard responds “So what? MY car talks.”

There endeth the funny.

The rest of the show plays like Michael Bay’s wet dream, with fast cuts, lame effects, and really, really, REALLY loud rock music, so loud that whenever it’s playing, the levels are higher than that of the dialogue, so you can’t even hear what the actors are saying…which, considering the lines they’re fed, is actually a plus.

Each act ends with a commercial cliffhanger that is ridiculously contrived, and each intro begins with a variation of “KITT saved them!” usually uttered blandly by Bruce Davison, who plays Devon Miles Charles Graiman, the inventor of KITT and father of the afore-mentioned super-ridiculously-ZOMG-hot Sarah. It seems there’s no situation that can’t be solved by KITT “diverting power” to one of his features, stinger-missile-hits included.

Of course, KITT’s omnipotence and save-the-dayability is no different from the original series, so I suppose I can forgive that. What can’t be forgiven is the brutal writing, poor acting, TERRIBLE editing, shitty sound editing, and generally abysmal effects that come together to make a viewing experience of McG proportions.

In the original, Michael Long’s transformation from his former self to the “man who does not exist” is a long journey of angst and self-discovery walked by a man who is torn between what he knows is right and his desperate desire for revenge.

In the remake, Mike Traceur’s evolution takes place over an afternoon, during which he is talked out of taking the car and finding his past by KITT’s gentle reminder than he is the Legal Property of…whoever the hell he’s the legal property of. Finally, in one of the most ham-fisted buddy scenes ever, Traceur is talked out of going with his Father’s name of Michael Long because “it sounds like a Porn name.” Alright, fine. Dick jokes. Awesome.

Finally, the show closes with Michael introducing himself as “Michael Knight”, officially stamping this show as nothing more than “Knight Rider: The Next Generation.”

The resurrection of the Supercar show has been attempted before: Team Knight Rider gave it a shot, and failed miserably. Viper was a short-lived show about a man and his transforming supercar, and it too tanked. Whatever gave this team the impression that they could succeed where all others have failed is unclear, but the lesson is clear: Stop trying. You will never be able to recapture the magic of a show that only succeeded because it was the right time for a show like that to exist.

The New Knight Rider belongs in the bin with The New Bionic Woman.

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