The movie also completely ignored the established Continuity of Knight Rider 2000 by having law enforcement officers use handguns (it became illegal for police to use firearms when reliable microwave stunners became widely available in the year 2000).

And the lack of Turbo Boost is most unforgivable.

Oh thank gawd. That was a horrible movie.

Wait! No turbo boost?! That's like an X-wing without s-foils. Those bastards! You ruined it all! You fed me back my childhood and you RUINED IT ALL!

i'll nominally agree with that. i do think that i'd honestly rather see David Hasselhoff's wrinkly butt behind the wheel than this kid. Bruening is... he's a twerp. i'm sure he'd do fine in any number of roles--but badass isn't one of 'em.

Z-95 Headhunter... oh wait, my starwars geekiness is starting to show...

Be calm everyone. They just didn't find an excuse to use a turbo boost in the tv movie. If or when they turn it into a series, I'm sure it's gonna have a turbo boost installed. I mean, how else could they do all those cool shots?

You don't need an excuse to use Turbo Boost. It is always appropriate.

Word!

Thirded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arL04K3HLMw

Sweet!

Well, we finally got to see the series. What do you all think?

I kinda like the homage to the original series. A man is declared dead, picks up a new name, a new identity, and a new supercar. They stuck to that pretty faithfully.

I liked that we finally got to see Turbo Boost. Didn't like the fact that we only saw it once, in passing.

Special effects are pretty cool.

But that's me. What about all of you?

I heard the ads on the radio and thought they were a joke. It honestly discouraged me from watching the show. I wasn't impressed by the pilot they showed last year either. I don't think they have the love for it. Is the series improved significantly from the pilot?

Yes and no. They actually have a plot, for one. There's good chemistry between the leading man and leading woman. And there's more special effects, which are fairly cool, along with the return of Turbo Boost. However, it's still the same group of actors, although the two new techies are fairly impressive. They could have done a lot worse for the Bonnie replacement. The script is also much better, more tense than before.

On the down side, much of the plot builds up to him fully assuming his new identity, in a similar fashion to his father. I won't spoil it; just go to NBC.com and watch it for yourself.

I think it's promising. They're starting up right from the beginning with an actual story arc, so that's great.

Things I really liked:

• Val Kilmer's take on KITT. It's clear he's still very young, and it was cool seeing him develop perhaps his first emotional trait -- worrying. Hopefully we'll see him develop as the series progresses, eventually coming into a more relaxed and less clinical personality.
• Russo stripping down. Okay, so I'm a guy sometimes. Sue me. She was hot shimmying out of her clothes.
• Traceur's "mysterious past." Hope it pans out and provides a lot more meat to the show rather than being a one-time "oh, this is why we're changing his name" thing.
• More emphasis on the epsionage angle which was actually downplayed a lot in the original show. Loved all the spy gadgets, like the two-part mini-welder.

Things I didn't care for:

• Attack Mode KITT. Why, exactly, is there a giant neon blue "KR" underneath him? It just looks like they took every available option from American Chopper or whatever superglued it on. I also wasn't crazy about him changing into a truck. Changing from one sports car to another I can handle. But adding that much more mass and being able to shuffle people from the back to the front during the transformation? Too much. Honestly I can't even figure out why he needs an Attack Mode. I mean, I realize it's an homage to Super Pursuit mode, but... he can clearly break 300mph in his normal mode as well as handle weapons fire, so what's the point in it?
• The two technies. I appreciate the attempts to bring life to some of the extras on the show, but all of their lines and interplay was too forced and awkward. And not geek-talking-to-pretty-girl awkward, but just awkward in the acting in general. If they tone them down just a bit and make it more natural, I'll be good.
• Why KITT needed anyone trying to calculate how to remove the napalm from his hull. He's a SOTA AI who knew the techie was making a mistake almost instantly, but was following orders regardless (much like how he deployed the flares when he already knew they wouldn't work). As soon as they decided that cutting off the oxygen would work, KITT should have just turned back and dove right off the bridge they were crossing when they came to that conclusion. Would have made a lot more sense, and I'd find it hard to believe that if he can keep the flames outside for that long and can change into a truck, that he wasn't able to submerge without much problem.

Well, okay, that list is turning into more of a nitpick thing, so I'll cut if off there. I'll be sticking around to see how the show develops. Right now it has a lot of promise but needs some fine tuning for it to be a solid addition to my TIVO list.

Also heard a rumor that near the end of the season, KITT (the Two Thousand model) and Hasslehoff's Knight will be showing up. Should be fun. Can't wait for the old KARR to make an appearance, too. He never was actually killed in the original series; his CPU was still in tact.

how was the CPU still intakt?
if i remember correctly, the second time he had to go cliff-diving he asploded on impact O.o
and don't say you want to see the red thing they called kitt in the 2000 movie? x.x . .
i'D rather see Goliath again . . so i like em big, tough and nasty, sue me!
would be nice to see GARTH Knight again too . . some nice family-dramatics or something like that ^^
and in the role of garth knight, the hoff actually did look badass and manly . .

At the very end of the episode you see his CPU fully intact amongst the wreckage with its scanner still doing the Cylon thing, albeit faintly.

Oh, and no, I wasn't talking about the 2000 movie. The original KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) is who I meant, as opposed to the one in the new show (the Knight Industries Three Thousand). As far as I'm aware, that movie, the apocolyptic cyberpunk future Knight Rider, Team Knight Rider, and pretty much anything that wasn't the original series isn't considered "canon" in this one.

I was so disapointed in the new show. They decided to go "full cheese" or the show. I had to turn it of after 15 minutes, it was worse than the bionic woman remake.

i'm intrigued and wish to learn more O.o
you don't mean Knightrider 2010 do you?
the Movie with the fight between a ground based Stealth-Fighter-Jet and the heap of junk with the virtual woman?

That's the only post-apocalypse future Knight Rider out there.

Personally, I thought the special effects were cheesy and the team was too big. Knight Rider is supposed to be The Lone Ranger in a car. Having a huge team and a huge base defeats that.

in the original Series, there were Knight, Devon, Bonnie, later on R.C., that makes 4 people. plus the car.
Big Base was there too, AND there was the moderately big mobile base of the truck . . .
the Teams in the Movies were not that bad in compareing . . Team Knightrider was the worst in that regard . .

Yes, 2010 was what I was referring to.

I don't mind there being a "base" where they work on and upgrade KITT or that acts as an information/mission hub. I just don't like the implementation of the one they're using. KITT really shouldn't need techies figuring things out for him, especially when he proves right in the first episode that he's smarter and more efficient than said techies. I mean in the original series it was pretty implausible to believe they were able to give KITT his super-pursuit mode in the back of a semi. There should be a happy medium between both ideas.

I do have to say that I like the implication we saw that there may be more than one AI in the "KITT cave." Mike seemed to know one of the robot's name as he petted it while walking by, and it responded with a little hum. That could lead to some interesting stories.

Super Pursuit Mode was stupid in every aspect, and pretty much where the show jumped the shark. Which is why I don't think Attack Mode was very wise.

Not disagreeing.

I finally got to watch the pilot for the new series last night (stupid Oz TV!).

In my opinion, it wasn't terrible. It did drag in parts, and probably could have been edited down to an hour, but all-in-all I thought it was entertaining.

Down to an hour? I'm guessing you mean the movie? Give the first real episode ("A Knight in Shining Armor") a shot. It was a little better, though I realize why a lot of people didn't care for it. You can watch it numerous places online, such as here at Hulu.

Yes, I meant the movie. The series is just about to start its run on TV down here. Are there any differences? The movie is basically being billed out here as the pilot to the new series. Is that not correct?

I guess it's technically a pilot, but it was more of a television movie that became a series rather than a television movie made to sell a series. The first real episode is the one I linked above which has a bunch of minor differences from the movie. The way KITT transforms and his voice box are some major points. The KITT cave, the staff, and pretty much all the other basic elements are different but the same. Hard to explain.

But it's all done by a different production team, so yeah... there are differences. A lot of people who liked the series agreed that the movie wasn't all that great. So take that for what it's worth.

I see. Thanks for clearing up my confusion. I do intend to watch the series, and I exect I'll enjoy it, regardless of reviews.

Channel 7 won't make it easy. Bionic Woman, for instance, disappeared without a trace.

No great loss.

Ok, episode 2:

This one was definitely interesting. It had a decent plot, lots of cool cars, hot women in bikinis, and plenty of action. The ending was also great, as KITT is showing more and more personality. I'm beginning to have good hopes for this series.

Really? I found it insipid with ill-thought dialogue and mismanaged character interactions. For example, the show continually beats the viewer over the head with the alleged sexual tension between the pair of agents, partly on the basis of their past relationship, but it's portrayed like the worst scripted high school romance you could find in an after school special. The actors are stiff together and don't act like people who know each other, which is important given that the characters are supposed to have been dating on an extended basis.



The plot was the agents vs. illegal military weapons salesmen whose cover is illegal street racing. That's not decent, that's dumb. What kind of idiot criminal goes around with another illegal enterprise as a COVER?!



Ok, I'll give you both of those, and sadly, they appear to be the primary draw of the show. And I have to admit that I'm curious as to what the blue roadster was in the premiere episode, but I'm not stuck on them.



I suppose. I only made it (in this week's episode) to the point where KITT and driver ditch the obligatory race to rush back to save the girl agent, only to discover that she's saved herself and he got captured because he couldn't be bothered to look behind the door he was stepping through.



I think in the end, I prefer my fictional secret agents to seem competent, even if it is all scripted out.

Plenty of shadowrunners have cover identities as a gang members or made men...

Stupid in some ways, but very much in genre.

I'm still having some issues with the "super tech" they use on the show. Transforming car, yeah okay maybe. Self-repairing nannites, alright. Car that transforms into an entirely different type of vehicle with a minor change of a computer program, not so much. Turbo boost looks like that stupid rocket pack they put on R2D2 in Episode 2.

Kind of like the techie supporting cast. But there are a bunch of lab coat types that seem to do nothing there but walk back and forth carrying datapads. The old guy (leading woman's dad) really needs killed off, or remarried, or just to get a life. He's got no use there.

The super secret base is underneath an aircraft hangar? So all the missions happen within a couple of hundred miles of there, right? Nobody notices the fancy black car driving in and then not being in the hangar?

I quit watching when I realized the show would never NOT make my head hurt with it's awfulness.