NBC should have just gone ahead and called its "Knight Rider" remake "Son of Knight Rider." Sure, it might have given away a plot "twist" (protagonist Mike Tracer is -- surprise, surprise -- the son of the old Michael Knight, hero of the show's previous incarnation, and David Hasselhoff showed up in the final scene to prove it), but at least it would have put viewers in the appropriate B-movie frame of mind, softening the blow just a tad.
As it was, the new "Knight Rider," starring Justin Bruening as the new Mike and Val Kilmer as the voice of KITT, the über computer car, was a bit of a shock. The two-hour (!) movie/pilot/extended Ford commercial crept by Sunday night like a glacier with turbo-revving sound effects. (No advance screeners were available, never a good sign.) "It's pretty talky for a show about a cool car," concluded my 9-year-old son, and he pretty much nailed it.
'Knight Rider': A review of the TV show "Knight Rider" in Tuesday's Calendar section misspelled the first name of actor Sidney Poitier as Sydney.
To her aid comes KITT, now the Knight Industries Three Thousand, as opposed to the Knight Industries Two Thousand, and a Ford Mustang instead of a Pontiac Trans Am because, you know, it's 25 years later and sponsors change. With Kilmer channeling Mr. Spock (at one point he actually says "that is logical," which I think may constitute copyright infringement), KITT takes Sarah back to Tracer, a former super soldier who served in Iraq (or, as he pronounces it, "EYE-rack") and Sarah's old flame.
