Date of airing: October 1, 1982 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 15.4/26 in Households
written by: William Schmidt, Bob Shayne
directed by: Paul Stanley
This is only the second episode and the characters made it seem like Michael Knight already had a hang for picking up young and attractive women whom he can help solve their problems. And Michael and Devon already had a repertoire ready that made their partnership sound like it had already been going on for multiple months. Not knowing a lot about 1980s television (I am a kid of the 1990s after all), I am going to assume that this was a regularity of TV writing back then – even though the show has just premiered, make the episodes sound like they are part of a show already on the air for years, so that in case of being sold into syndication, the episodes can be aired constantly and randomly, without the channels having to watch for episode orders. Besides, it is not like 1980s television is known for serialized or ongoing storytelling, even though I would wish for something in that realm to be found in KNIGHT RIDER.
On the other hand, this episode may have been produced later and only aired as the third hour of the series (the pilot movie being the first two hours). Otherwise, I could not explain why Devon was ready to immediately joke about his working relationship with Michael by telling our action hero that, after an attempt was made to kill Michael, he had an alibi. First of all, this was a top-notch joke, and even I found myself laughing for one or two seconds. Secondly, this is a prime example of 1980s television being written with the syndicated market in mind already. Michael is not the newest member of the Foundation, he was already working a lot for them. This episode was not Michael's second attempt at busting the criminals of America, because he is already a professional at that.
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| Mr. Knight waits patiently for the next plot point. |
This episode was good enough, even if I was rolling my eyes and giggling at certain moments of absurdity and cringe-level acting. Every once in a while, when David Hasselhoff was on screen, I confused KNIGHT RIDER for a comedy show. The way he handled the machine gun while locking in the villain soldiers right before the final act, or the way he got out of the car in a confused and angry fashion when he met Robin Ladd at the site of her father’s supposed accident. Or simply just the moment right after the funeral of Robin’s father, where he leaned against a wall and was waiting for Robin to come out (I had to screenshot that moment because it was so ludicrous).
But maybe this is part of the humor the show needed from the get-go, to make sure that KNIGHT RIDER was never a serious show and that viewers should never try to get anything more out of it than a leather jacket-wearing superhero driving what could be described as a cross of a car and a spaceship. And let's be honest here, the many cringe moments of the episode made it worthwhile entertainment, because laughing about it made me feel good for 45 minutes. Not to mention that comedy is definitely needed on KNIGHT RIDER – Michael cannot always have a banter with an inanimate object like K.I.T.T., sometimes he needs a human counterpart to trade insults with, hence that comedic scene between Devon and Michael at the "home office." And while I do not believe for a second that Michael and Devon have a working relationship that is built on respect and something called friendship, it could at least serve a few moments of comedy in which the supercar is not involved.
Of course, the story was ridiculous. KNIGHT RIDER has not even aired for a full week on NBC and it was already dealing with tactical nuclear missiles, which for some reason are only being marked by a strip of color on them, and for another reason yet to be explained are stored in this seemingly meaningless military installation in the middle of nowhere, in which civilians can enter and exit as they please, as well as ask officers about other officers and actually get answers. This episode reminded me of DOCTOR WHO, and the only thing Michael was missing was the psychic paper that would have given him access to everything at the base more logically than the way he actually got access, which was sans any kind of logic. But I guess that is part of the charm of the show, and 80s television in general. Writers did not particularly care to make character decisions logical – as long as they showed up at a spot to move the story forward, everything is hunky dory.
But yeah, KNIGHT RIDER does not stand the test of time with these kinds of moves. With today’s television standards in your mind, there is no way that Robin would just get into Michael’s car like that, and with a smile and a level of excitement to tell her story about her and her father to a stranger she just met. With today’s standards, a story like this is going to be financed and produced by Michael Bay, although I do believe that television before I became sentient of it was readily available to celebrate the troops in any shape or form, even though they did not particularly look heroic in this episode. Half of them were murderers and villains or simply just idiots, and the only two people in the Army who were portrayed in a positive light were the attractive female guest star and Major Rainey, an African-American Army soldier who suddenly found himself to be acting commander of the base because his predecessor turned out to be a corrupt government official.
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| Boom booms on television make all the young men happy. |
Nonetheless, KNIGHT RIDER had an action show to sell, so almost the entire final act was all about Michael and K.I.T.T. maneuvering around explosions and live rockets, including a stint of Michael out of his car and taking his sweet time to rescue Robin from certain doom and death. I wonder how long the producers were able to use the budget money for explosions and stuff, because I got the feeling that some extra money was definitely spent on all the boom-booms and fires around the heroes.
It is kind of interesting that this was all the action there was in the episode. Michael could have gotten into a fistfight at least twice, yet the producers did not go there, which I think can be blamed on the fact that the show did not have fight choreographers just yet (or there was no money in the budget, considering pyro technicians had to be hired to plan some of those explosions). It was amusing to see Michael run after the escaping bad guy without even getting into a proper fight. At this point, what KNIGHT RIDER apparently needed to learn was how to spend the money a little wiser. And I am wondering if that learning experience ever happened.
