Season 1, Episode 3
Date of airing: October 8, 1982 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 14.33 million Household, 17.2 rating/30 share in Households
Written by: Deborah Davis
Directed by: Daniel Haller
”He has stolen his
vehicle from the impound lot and broken out of jail.”
“I
didn't steal my car.”
“Oh, I suppose you want be to believe that it drove itself over here and picked you up?”
In the fourth hour of the show, Michael finally got to make out with the guest star of the week. First, a kiss on the lips for “good luck,” then a proper make-out session while K.I.T.T. was in auto mode, because Michael needed some vacation, and he figured that doing it with a woman in his car was vacation for him. I also just noticed that, with the three women guest stars of the week this show has presented so far, two of them were single mothers of boys. I guess this 1980s show still believed that Michael, the heroic man, needed to save the woman, and did so with a kid sidekick, which was a trope pretty much everyone used on television and in comics during the 1980s and before. Not to mention the fact that the boy character turned out to be dumb because he got into danger. First, by secretly joining Michael in the demolition derby (“Knight of the Phoenix”), and now by sneaking up on the bikers and spying on them.
This episode had a nice premise though – the “smalltown in danger of being the battleground in a war” plot can be exciting if done correctly. And while the premise never went this far (it ended before it even began), the way the Scorpions were chased out of town was quite good to look at. KNIGHT RIDER is a show about an awesome car after all, and the producers knew how to put on car chases with the Trans-Am. Some nice motorbike stunts as well, with the riders doing some nasty falls as K.I.T.T. and Michael were bowling them out of the competition.
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| Congratulations for being a stereotypical biker character who likes to pillage and rape a small town! |
