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Riding a wave of 80s nostalgia, Knight Rider has returned, along with a brand new cast of characters and a major overhaul for the new millennium. The two-hour movie, besides serving as an infomercial for the Ford motor company, introduced the newer—but not improved—series to prime time earlier this week.

 

I was but a wee lad when a pre-Baywatch David Hasselhoff hit the roads in the original Knight Industries Two-Thousand. In the years since, the legend of the Knight Rider has only escalated in my mind as well as in the minds of other 80s geeks everywhere. It has been forever preserved in our mental Hall of Legends, right alongside the Duke boys, Godzilla and BJ & the Bear.

 

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be thought the show needed some tune-ups to appeal to a new generation. In the first fifteen minutes, viewers were treated to two “morning after” bedroom shots, one including the new hero (Justin Bruening) in a threesome and another featuring a character (Syndey Tammiia Poitier) in a lesbian one-night-stand. It’s as though we’re all standing around the playground discussing the show and some snickering boys decided what the show needed was more perverted sex. Those boys appeared to have been recruited to help write, also, adding lines like “Is she hot?” to the dialogue between FBI agents at its headquarters.

 

The need to spice things up is perplexing, since the target audience no doubt is geared to children. Those of us adults with warm hearts for KITT tuned in (no doubt helping its significant Nielson ratings score) but a new generation will be needed to keep it alive. Parents with the original version in mind will do well to take a good look before letting their kids join the ride.

 

Even besides the racy content, the show is running on fumes. KITT’s voice, originally to be Will Arnett but replaced at the last minute by Val Kilmer, is extremely stale and uncomfortable. There are also major plot holes. When the car’s creator Charles Graiman narrowly escapes a murder attempt, he opts to run on foot through the woods to look for help. Maybe he was having a senior moment, but I think I would have hopped into that bullet-proof turbo-charged racing machine he had in his garage. 

 

In the end, the treasure that awaited us longsuffering geeks was a cameo from the Hoff himself. Once again playing Michael Knight, he meets his son at his wife’s funeral and yet manages to stay strangely nonchalant about both (we know the feeling, Hoff). When junior asks him if he’ll see him again, I could almost hear him say, “Yes, November sweeps!”