Knight Rider – Season Three

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Episodes: C+

 

 

A talking car was once a curse for TV when My Mother, The Car was such an all-time bomb, but Universal Television made a hit out of Knight Rider and it was the kind of hit NBC needed at the time when the network was in big trouble.  By the 1984-85 season, the show had peaked and became even more childish than when it began, though the initial shows and seasons were sort of fun.  We previously covered the show when we reviewed the great CD soundtrack with music by Stu Philips, but pick up with Season Three of the series

 

David Hasselhoff is now know for Baywatch and selling records in Germany as a singer, but at the time, this show put him on the map.  The real start of the show was the car KITT, which could think and spoke in the voice of the great actor William Daniels, who was about to do double duty for a time between this show and on screen acting on the legendary St. Elsewhere.  This was the season where they stretched the gimmick as far as they could, including KITT battling a competing KATT car as if it were an old episode of one of the Bionic series.  As fun and amusing, intended and unintended this season could be, the show was running out of steam and even becoming self-satire to its majority audience of young males.  All 21 shows from that season are here and Edward Mulhare with them.  Otherwise, it is also one of those time capsules of the bad side of 1980s fashion and attitude, though many realized that at the time.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image shows its age with some grain and color issues typical of such productions, but is no better or worse than the broadcast prints.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is stereo-like, proving someone was recoding the show above the usual 1980s TV standards.  No wonder that CD soundtrack sounded so good in stereo.  A bonus episode from the next season is included in lieu of that next set, which we will hopefully get a look at.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo