...into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.
That was the deep, breathy intro of Knight Rider, as voiced by William Conrad (Cannon, Jake and the Fat Man).
Last week, NBC aired the new Knight Rider movie. This is the third major "re-issue" of a 70s-80s television show that featured a well-known vehicle as one of the stars. We had Starsky & Hutch with the famous "Striped Tomato" Ford Gran Torino, and Dukes of Hazzard with its "General Lee" Dodge Charger. But in those theatrical releases, it was current actors playing the old roles. To their credit, the producers of the new Knight Rider movie chose to move the story into the present, acknowledging in the storyline that the previous incarnation was 25 years ago.
I'm no big fan of remakes. I saw S&H because of the car... the movie itself wasn't that great (why did the location change from LA to San Francisco?), and if you didn't already know Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul, the end made no sense. You can't pay me enough cash to watch the DofH movie. But I watched Knight Rider, and I'll have to give it a solid 7. The movie probably was 30 minutes too long, and there were a few moments that left me thinking "huh?" But the best part was, the plot was set up not only to allow the show to return as a series at some point in the near future, but Hasselhoff's original Michael Knight character was made a part of the movie and can be easily written in as a recurring cameo.
But since this is The Big Rigs, I have to ask... will NBC talk Greg Evigan into reprising Billie Joe McKay?
