Blockbuster 80s Action Series Was Rebooted 20 Years Later And No One Noticed

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 34 seconds ago

Reboots and remakes aren’t a new Hollywood trend. For decades, studios have been digging into their archives to revive old IP for a new generation.  It worked with Battlestar Galactica, but a few years later, Universal attempted the same formula: a TV movie, then a launch of the new, darker, grittier series with Knight Rider.

The deliberately cheesy ’80s series that turned David Hasselhoff into an international star stalled at the starting line when it returned in 2008. Not even a mid-season rework could save the series, which is now mostly forgotten, while the original remains a fan favorite.

A K.I.T.T. For A New Generation

The 2008 series replaces Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight with his son, Michael Tracuer, adopting the name Knight after the first episode (played by Justin Bruening, now a Hallmark movie regular), and Val Kilmer voices K.I.T.T. The two are working for the U.S. government under the watchful eye of FBI Agent Carrie Rivai (Sydney Poitier) and NSA Agent Alex Torres (Yancey Arias), at least for the first dozen episodes before the reboot hits and the pair end up working for the revived Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG). This time around, K.I.T.T. is powered by nanotechnology, and the series attempted to tell overarching storylines digging into both Mike’s forgotten past and the return of K.I.T.T.’s archenemy, K.A.R.R. 

As with most network procedurals, the overarching storylines came into play during the opening and closing of most episodes, with the bulk of the runtime an adventure of the week. Mike goes undercover to foil assassination plots, has to drive over 100 MPH to keep a bomb from exploding, goes undercover to prevent an assassination, races a terrorist, and you’re starting to get the picture. To Universal’s credit, they put a hefty budget behind the Knight Rider reboot, with every episode featuring great shots of K.I.T.T., but in 2008, no one could get excited over the return of a show that was mostly known for being a punchline. 

Once he finally appears, K.A.R.R. was voiced by Peter Cullen, most famous as the voice of Transformers’ Optimus Prime, which is a little ironic as the reboot series decided to turn K.I.T.T. into a transformer. Taking advantage of the nanomachine concept and an increased special effects budget, K.I.T.T. would shift forms into “attack mode” and even “turbo boost,” resulting in exterior modifications to the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. It was the right type of updating from the original’s “Super Pursuit Mode” but overshadowed by every other misguided attempt to modernize the series.

No One Cares About Michael Knight’s Love Life

Knight Rider was so ignored that NBC dropped the series from 22 to 17 episodes, and dropping the extended cast halfway through to focus more on Michael and K.I.T.T. proved to be too little, too late. The TV movie pilot brought in 12 million viewers, but by going darker, it alienated fans of the original, and everyone else realized the goofy concept didn’t work in the 21st century. If the studio had embraced the inherent absurdity of a superpowered car used to perform clandestine government missions, it could have been a weekly Fast and Furious adventure. 

Universal tried to replicate Knight Rider in 1985, while the original was still airing, with Street Hawk by turning the car into a motorcycle, but as Torque proved, that never works. The success of the Battlestar Galactica reboot has never been duplicated, no matter how many times studios try. Instead of attempting to make something new and different, we’re subjected to more NCIS spin-offs, more updated revivals that miss the entire point of the original (looking at you, Charmed), and another Dexter sequel series.

Knight Rider 2008 attempted to do something different by shifting its missions and featuring a larger, more diverse cast. In the process, it forgot that what made the original a fan favorite was the relationship between Michael and K.I.T.T., not Michael’s love life, and especially not by forcing a love triangle into the story. Back in 2008, giving fans a campy show that winks at the audience would have been new and original; instead, they got another “modern” update, and Universal had to handle another early cancellation.