Last night’s episode of Knight Rider 2008 marks the beginning of the series doing some fine tuning on its engine in focusing more on the purpose of the original. The episode “Exit Light, Enter Knight,” takes a little bit of a page out of the Spike Lee film Inside Man, as Mike (Justin Bruening), KITT (voice of Val Kilmer), and their team have been working independently since the government shut them down after their climatic battle with KARR the week before.
Their latest mission finds them stopping a bank robbery and reuniting a little girl with their family in the process. When the series first aired last fall, most of the episodes every week involved in a top-secret government project that prevents terrorism with the help of an artificially intelligent supercar that talks.
Though the series has potential, ratings have been in the dust. Hopefully, after last night, NBC will give KR ’08 more road to grow for a second season. It is starting to find traction and finally discovering the direction on what Knight Rider is really all about: the sci-fi/fantasy version of a modern-day Lone Ranger in a dangerous world filled with crime and injustice with a talking, supplicated car as his Tonto — traveling from place to place to aid those that can’t fight for themselves. A young loner/white knight championing the cause of the innocent, the helpless, and the powerless in a world of criminals that operates above the law.
Most of all, Knight Rider is all about one motto: that one man can make a difference.
ggodwin82@yahoo.com
