"Knight Rider. A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight: a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law." – Wilton Knight

When Police Officer Michael Long is betrayed and shot in the head during a stakeout, his life is saved when the bullet deflects off the metal plate in his skull - the result of an injury sustained in the Vietnam War; his face, however, is horrifically damaged… When he comes to, Michael learns that after being officially declared dead, he has been brought under the medical care of the Knight Foundation, a philanthropic organisation owned by billionaire Wilton Knight. Knight explains that he is dying from a fatal disease, but hopes that his life’s crusade of helping the helpless will live on in his new protégé. With the aid of reconstructive surgery the young officer is given a new face and identity – that of ‘Michael Knight’ – access to an advanced prototype car equipped with an artificial intelligence named K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand), and offered a job fighting crime for F.L.A.G. – the Foundation for Law And Government…

Created by the ultra-prolific Glen A.Larson (the man who created ‘Battlestar Galactica’, ‘Buck Rogers in the 25th Century’, ‘The Six million Dollar Man’, ‘The Fall Guy’, ‘Magnum P.I.’, and many, many more), ‘Knight Rider’ was originally seen as a modern-day version of ‘The Lone Ranger’ – albeit with a sentient, talking car instead of a horse. Cast in the lead role of this crime-busting, action-packed show was hunky, bubble-permed beefcake David ‘The Hoff’ Hasslehoff, who later went on to star in ‘Baywatch’ and take up a dodgy singing career that has inexplicably given him a cult status in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where he has sold some nine million records. For most viewers, though, the real star of the show was K.I.T.T., the charismatic artificial intelligence installed in a stylishly cool, black Pontiac Trans Am. The vehicle’s most distinctive feature was its Anamorphic Equalizer, a glowing scan bar that is reminiscent of the eye of a Cylon from ‘Battlestar Galactica’. While the car’s chassis was reinforced with a ‘Molecular Bonded Shell’ that could resist most conventional weaponry, the vehicle could reach speeds of 300 mph, employ a 'Turbo Boost' to jump over obstacles, and was equipped with numerous gadgets such as scanners, analysers, a grappling hook, a parachute, a flame-thrower, a microwave jammer, and even an ejector seat. By the time of the fourth season, K.I.T.T. had been destroyed, rebuilt and equipped with a convertible roof and a ‘Super-Pursuit Mode’, which employed rocket boosters and retractable spoilers to provide an extra 40% boost in speed. Accompanying Michael and K.I.T.T. in their adventures were Foundation leader Devon Miles, played with British aristocratic stiff-upper-lip-ness by Edward Mulhare; brainy but beautiful mechanic Bonnie Barstow, as played by Patricia McPherson (who was replaced in season two by Rebecca Holden as April Curtis in an effort to introduce more ‘glitz’ to the show – it failed, and McPherson returned for seasons three and four); and street-wise Reginald Cornelius III, or ‘RC3’, played by Peter Parros in the last season.

After four highly-entertaining seasons, ‘Knight Rider’ came to an end; however, it was later revived in 1991 in a TV Movie, ‘Knight Rider 2000’, which saw the return of Michael Knight, and the introduction of K.I.F.T. – the new Knight Industries Four Thousand. A second TV movie, ‘Knight Rider 2010’ and a series, ‘Team Knight Rider’ were also produced, but they were a) rubbish and b) had nothing to do with the original series, so the less said about them the better.

‘Knight Rider’ returned to television screens in 2008, as a TV movie pilot that saw David Hasselhoff briefly reprise his role as Michael Knight, handing over the driving seat of the new Knight Industries Three Thousand to his son, Mike Traceur, played by Justin Bruening. It wasn’t a bad attempt, and a season of seventeen action-packed episodes followed, before the show finally got canned. Let’s hope that this isn’t the last we see of one of television’s greatest crime-fighting double acts…

Knight Rider - Season 1
Knight Rider - Season 2
Knight Rider - Season 3
Knight Rider - Season 4
Knight Rider 2000 - TV Movie

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