The show pulled in 12.7m viewers, which is no mean feat for a telemovie, starring an unknown Justin Bruening (a former army ranger and failed race car driver) as the new Mike and Val Kilmer as the voice of KITT -- although clearly not KITT as KITT was a 1980s Trans Am.I'm not sure what the attraction is. I vaguely remember watching on Saturday evenings, but could never get that worked up about a talking car that seemed to drive around small dusty towns. But clearly someone has a shrine to this show, as it's the third effort at reviving it. The two previous shots were apparently woeful -- 'Knight Rider 2000' and the apparently worse still 'Team Knight Rider'. Besides everyone knows there is only one Team and if you can find them maybe you can get them back on TV instead.The numbers look good and NBC is said to be weighing up the idea of a series, but not everyone was impressed, with fans dubbing the show boring on message boards and critics like TV Guide being no kinder with one or two calling it nothing more than an extended Ford commercial. "The new (more or less) Knight Rider wasn't really a show, more like the longest car ad in human memory. Almost made you pine for the good old days of the writers' strike."While Variety described it as "two hours that mostly amount to watching two people that once dated drive around together in a conspicuously product-placed Ford Mustang" . Well good news for Ford if no one else -- it also bought ads in all the breaks. It won a bidding war to replace the General Motors original. Although, ironically in a comes around goes around kind of way, the Trans Am was inspired by the original Ford Mustang. Mary McNamara, of The Los Angeles Times, criticised the choice of Kilmer as the voice of Kitt and said the film was "stuck in the 80s", while another said he was channelling Spock. And it's totally true, listen for yourself. Kilmer even utters the line: "I am incapable of happiness, but I will say it seems logical you are here." Clearly, Leonard Nimoy was busy.
You can probably blame GM for that, it threw a spanner in the works by yanking the services of Will Arnett, who had been hired as the new voice of KITT, two weeks before airdate. He does voiceovers for GMC Trucks and they didn't want him apparently being the voice of a Ford Mustang. Could GM be that hacked off at losing to Ford? It seems so. Ford Beat both GM and Chrysler to win.We're already had the 'Bionic Woman' and the truly excellent 'Battlestar Galactica' return with much poorer ratings so a series could really be in the offing. The Los Angeles Times just hopes that someone figures out that the 80s are well and truly over:
Gordon Macmillan
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