Wednesday February 18, 2009
Cool K.I.T.T. in Knight Rider
By MICHAEL CHEANG
It’s the super-duper cool K.I.T.T. that takes centrestage this time around.
First things first – yes, the new K.I.T.T. is incredibly cool. And it’s no longer the Knight Industries Two Thousand, by the way. It’s now the Knight Industries Three Thousand, and it’s no longer the same old classic sleek, black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am we know so well.
Though one reckons if you’re going to update one of the most iconic cars in TV history, you really can’t go wrong with a Ford Mustang, cliché as that may be.
Along with the vehicle upgrade, K.I.T.T. has also been fitted with all sorts of cool, state-of-the-art hardware, including a touch-screen projection screen for easy access to top secret information (whoa!), an in-built medical emergency system complete with a bio-matrix scanner to gauge your health status (wow!), missiles (woohoo!), Gatling machine guns (awesome!), and a er... fax machine (ok, so this one isn’t exactly that cool, but you get the picture).
Not cool enough for you? How about this then – the new K.I.T.T. even has Batman (ok, a former Batman, and frankly, not one of the better ones) a.k.a. Val Kilmer doing all the talking for him.
Remember the old super-pursuit mode? Well, replacing that is the very powerful “Attack Mode”, in which K.I.T.T. morphs into a souped-up Ah Beng car with gaudy spoilers to match. And that’s not all he can morph into. Thanks to this convenient new invention called nano-technology, K.I.T.T. can also morph into a pick-up truck, a police car, and a er… minivan, of all things. I bet they’d have made him morph into a Kancil if they could only figure out how to fit all those extra parts in.
It’s all a bit too Transformers-like for my taste. And if you think K.I.T.T.’s morphing technology seems too Transformers-like, wait till you see his arch-nemesis K.A.R.R. – that guy even has Optimus Prime doing his voice!
So yes, the new K.I.T.T. is super-cool. But you do get the feeling they it made him just a little too invincible for his own good. Heck, the car can take a direct hit from a rocket launcher and suffers nothing more than just a temporary breakdown! Hey, at least the old K.I.T.T. was believable.
Oh, what about the rest of the car, you say? You mean this show ain’t about the car? Michael Knight?
There may be no David Hasselhoff this time around (he did appear in the TV movie), but we have Michael Traceur (played by Justin Bruening) who apparently is the son of the old Michael Knight.
Considering he’s actually playing second fiddle to a car on the show, Bruening actually does a pretty decent job – coming across as cocky, yet slightly unsure of himself (could it be an issue with the actor getting used to talking to an inanimate object).
We’ve also got a very hot Deanna Russo as Sarah Graiman, Traceur’s former girlfriend, who happily parades around in cleavage-baring outfits. Sarah also conveniently happens to be the daughter of Charles Graiman (Bruce Davison), creator of the new K.I.T.T.
There are some other supporting characters along for the ride, as well as a spanking new headquarters, but for the most part, the show is mainly about K.I.T.T. and his pet driver.
Ok, now that we’ve got the introductions over with, let’s be frank here. The old Knight Rider was iconic, it was cool, and it was also made in the 1980s and was cheesy as hell.
Upgrading the series to a new millennium means more than just upgrading the car.
Unfortunately, while the effects and the car are super-cool, the show still seems stuck in a time warp where it’s the 80s all over again.
There are the incredibly lame jokes, the cheesy dialogue, the one-dimensional supporting cast, and of course, the rather ridiculous plots involving everything from saving the world from global terrorist conspiracies and weapons smugglers, to thwarting kidnappers and bank robbers.
It’s cheesy, entertaining fun, but seriously folks, there is only so much cheesiness one can take in a single episode, let alone an entire season.
And speaking of seasons, the show has not yet been picked up for a second season (at as time of writing). It has recently gone through a complete overhaul midway through the first season (apparently some characters have been killed off, and the show has been re-aligned to focus more on K.I.T.T. and Michael).
Whether or not this makes for a better show remains to be seen, one thing is for sure – if the series does become as big a hit as the old Knight Rider, be prepared to see a lot more black modified Ah Beng cars with blinking red light scanners on their hoods.
Knight Rider airs on Star World (Astro channel 711) every Thursday at 9pm.
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