I spent the weekend on a whole heck of a lot of production, and I’m writing this at 2 A.M. With that, and given that the Knight Rider movie is a backdoor pilot instead of a “new show,” I’m going to give myself permission to replace my normal, proper review with this bullet-point response.

• How does one make the new Michael Knight even more shallow than the first one? Ah… have him wake up with two bimbos and then run from loan sharks. That’ll do it.
• I want the Glen A. Larson retirement plan. Just wait for culture to repeat itself every 30 years or so, and then collect new checks for your old work.
• Val Kilmer’s voice completely lacks the character and edge that Will Arnett’s would have had. His voice was actually among my least favorite things about the show.
• The bikini shower of Sydney Tamiia Poitier, followed by her character’s lesbian lover in bed? Extraneous with a capital strain. Then again, her entire plotline was extraneous.
• Much like the on-campus episode of Chuck, they did a good job picking locations that almost look sorta like Stanford, but that ain’t Stanford.
• This is the second time this week I’ve watched a scene with an artificial intelligence attempting to understand the process of human grieving over death. The writing and acting as Summer Glau offered a pencil on The Sarah Conner Chronicles made KITT’s effort seem laughably trite and empty.
• Right. We get it. KITT’s a Ford. Enough already.
• Is it just me, or did our new Michael deliver the most gravitas of all his lines when he said, “I’ve just gotta pee.”
• Where did that machine gun come from?
• If you warm-over 80s cheese, all you get is melted cheese. Rather than get a complete makeover a la Battlestar Galactica, this was more of a next chapter. Not sure that’s interesting.
• The original Knight Rider holds a special place in my heart as the very first prime time show my parents would let me stay up late enough to watch. Man, I love that theme song. I guess, though, car chases and crappy dialogue had a lot more appeal when I was nine. Still, this redo was just cool enough to be passable. If you align your mindset to the fact that you’re watching the programming choice that followed American Gladiators on NBC’s strike-stricken schedule, you might not be disappointed.
• I miss Turbo Boost.

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