Date of airing: September 26, 1982 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 21.7/33 in Households
written by: Glen A. Larson
directed by: Daniel Haller
This was *the* show of my early childhood. It was the show that aired early evenings on German television and it was the show that I watched before my time as an elementary school kid started. I have faint memories of those times I sat in front of the television with my family to watch KNIGHT RIDER, making me wonder what I have forgotten about and how much of a nerd I was about this show, and how much I maybe wanted to be like Michael Knight and how often I told my parents I wanted a car like the Knight Industries Two Thousand, and how I never had one, even as a toy. This is how you find out in hindsight how much your parents have failed: If they find out you have an interest in something, they did not do anything to get me to hone that interest further.
It has been a long time since then, and every once in a while, I was thinking about taking on the show again - once I tried, but I did not get past this pilot movie. When the 2008 re-imagining aired on NBC, I thought about getting into KNIGHT RIDER again, but the silliness of the 2008 version – as much as I may have liked it back then – alienated me from the premise of "one man and his car." Suffice it to say, I watched the sequel movie that was supposed to be the beginning of a new series, but never bothered to get into TEAM KNIGHT RIDER, because it already looked cheap in pictures and promos.
But now it is 2023. Humanity just went through the nightmare of a deadly pandemic, the economies of countries are about to crash and burn, and so is the planet, so why not take the remainder of my time to fully get into the series? I figured it was time to finally get into KNIGHT RIDER for real, watch this show in a weekly rhythm and see if it still stands the test of time (after this episode, not really), how much of a 1980s love letter it is (a pretty long one), and how funny it can be, considering the now-silly premise and how the production team was trying to get on screen a story about a talking, indestructible, self-aware car (turns out, very funny).
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| The stunt driver is ready to show off. |
The pilot movie seemed quite solid. Yes, it is entertainment straight from the early 1980s, but sometimes it did not feel like it, and sometimes I was thinking how good of a show KNIGHT RIDER could have been if it had gotten some better actors and a bit of a bigger budget. Back in 2008, the writers and producers were almost living in the science-fiction genre of the supercar premise, but in the 80s, things had to be done realistically, without special effects, and with a budget that was supposed to get you over an entire season of episodes mostly set on exterior sets, with a car that cost $100k to make and therefore needed constant maintenance.
Hence the heavily proceduralized nature of the show, its very thin regular cast, and the focus on attractive guest stars David Hasselhoff was able to smooch, including in this pilot movie, despite the fact that Michael Knight and Maggie (whose actress Pamela Susan Shoop resembled Karen Allen a bit too much, which had me confused throughout the episode) were never as close as James T. Kirk was with some of the alien women he met on his journey through outer space. Oh, the 80s on broadcast television, where the central male characters get to make out with the pretty woman guest character almost every week. And while Maggie may not have been Michael's girlfriend in these 96 minutes, it is a fact that people in Maggie's life hoped he would stick around, be a husband to her and a father to her son. "Are you gonna marry my mom?", Maggie's son Buddy asked. This is where 80s television turns funny.
For an hour and a half, Michael Knight was going through some things. He botched an active police case by getting shot in the face, he quickly got exquisite plastic surgery that did not leave any scars on his face, and immediately got a new car and a new job without having to go through the process of recuperating after getting shot in the face and having to accept the fact that his old self is dead now and he can never go back to that life, which may or may not have had friends and family members involved. I am curious now: Did Michael Long ever have a family before this episode? He does not mention one, let alone a girlfriend or other sorts of friends, but the final scene of the movie kind of explained why Michael was so easy getting into this new life. "It's a loner's dream," he said when thinking about how much the new job is to his liking, making me think that Michael was always a "one man only"-type of guy and never really believed in having a partner (both in his private life and on the job).
In a way, Michael Knight is like me, because I would love to live "the loner's dream"-type of life as well (wait, am I not doing that already? I have no friends and no relationships...), although that character flaw makes Michael unreliable as a hero when he has to deal with other people on the job. First of all, he had Maggie around and seemed quite interested in dating her, bringing inconsistencies into the "loner's dream" premise. Secondly, he was not pissed when Buddy showed up in the car during the demolition derby, as one should be when considering themselves a "loner." I mean, here is Michael, driving around a pretty big secret, and he is being joined by a kid who was written by a person who probably never even knew how kids behaved. Thirdly, a "loner" would feel awkward as heck being assisted by artificial intelligence. But this is the early 1980s – THE TERMINATOR was not released yet, and the fear of an evil A.I. may not even have reached the public sphere yet. Wait, could that premise be part of the show later on, especially after THE TERMINATOR came out two years after the show's premiere?
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| Michael likes to chill and rest while in jail. |
I wished that Michael would have had some form of a backstory in this series opener. He turned out to be quite the expendable character (almost literally, due to the plastic surgery he received) and I love my TV shows filled with characters who I can care about. KNIGHT RIDER may be one of those shows that does not make you care about the hero, and instead pulls focus on the guest characters who need the hero's help. But can you make an audience care for the one-and-done characters, or has the show grown out of that premise after almost 40 years and is now just a boring and repetitive show about an ordinary friend and savior with an extraordinary car that goes through the same motions in nearly every episode?
The rural United States of America may be filled with low-life criminals who threaten the innocent need a beating by an up-and-coming rockstar, but having to watch that premise 24 times a year would be tiresome after a short while. That might be a reason why I never got into KNIGHT RIDER when I wanted to and decided to not watch the show, even when the digital files were lying in my digital storage. But as I said, it is 2023 and the planet is dying, so maybe an everyday hero with an artificial intelligence as his best friend smashing some dudebros and evil white men is something I need right now. And every once in a while, the bad dude bros are even women, as evident in this episode.
