Feels like TKR and lasted as long

neacorp

Honestly, the new series felt like TKR in so many aspects, but the writers didn't do their homework, and like TKR it also was an unsuccessful spin-off. That wasn't even a big shocker really.

The first half of the series was horrid and seamed like a crossbreed between the original series 100 words or less plot summary and the "Transformers" live action movie it was inspired on. Seriously. The transformers were a cool brand name and many people paid to see the movie once. But there is a difference of success in profit, and success in making something we would watch again. The first halve of the series had too many subplots, adult teasing in every episode and one big fiction no sense conspiracy. Its literally "writers gone wild".

The original KITT was a simple car with an integrated super PC and extra features, all covered in an invisible armor jell or something like that. The new KITT was anything but simple. Many features seamed too appear out of nowhere and were never seen again when needed. Is the new transforming shell liquid like in the film, or plate? Sometimes the system couldn't do simple things like visually track planes through a satellite, but the next time it seamed like they could hack pentagon. That got really annoying really fast.

When the viewers got fed up of this (insert your emotion response here) and made it clear to stop watching an insult to the original series, the writers realized they were so close to getting fired, they finally started to take it seriously and went to what we were expecting. The cast went down to 4 main human characters and became more about a regular detective show. Some of the episodes after the KARR battle were good to watch, but it was too late and had the writers done so in the first place, the series might have lived for another season or two.

In TKR I really liked not only the new cars (more than one) special abilities, personalities (yeah, they could simulate emotions), but mostly the vertical flight super plane. The practical idea of the original knight semi was something we all wanted to do at least once in our lives. Here we were given almost no practical effects, just plane effect. Explain to me how spinning KITT helps scanning the exterior? Explain to me what happened to the pilot who wanted to bail out of the carrier plane and why did the carrier plane explode in the first place? You cant without using the words "writer", "looks cool" and "developer".

Worst of all the series had some of the original development crew form the original series. I kept asking myself, what happened to these people? Why did they make this so different from the original that we can't recognize it? Did they stood up and tried to make a change before the verdict on the show was made? So many questions.

Maybe it's me, but it seams like there is a failure curse on all the Knight Rider spin-offs. Hell, they even didn't beat TKRs 22 episode marker. Really sad.

score 4/10

neacorp 8 June 2009

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2078019/