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Knight Rider: The Complete Series

Universal // Unrated // October 21, 2008
List Price: $139.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]

Review by Ian Jane | posted November 11, 2008 | E-mail the Author
The Series:

In 1982 a young man named Michael Knight (played by a big haired Member's Only jacket wearing David Hasslehoff) drove off the back of a truck in his slick, black Trans Am, and into our collective TV watching hearts. The ladies swooned for him, and the guys all wanted to be just like him. Michael Knight was the coolest cat to hit TV that season, and his car made him even cooler.

Michael and his indestructible talking car K.I.T.T. had many adventures, but this first season is the one that turned all of us, the children of the eighties, into serious converts. Some of us were hardcore enough to make our own K.I.T.T.'s out of Hot Wheels cars and bring them to school to impress our friends. Well, maybe not many of us, but at least one other kid at school and I were - because Michael Knight was the coolest.

Season One:

Knight Of The Phoenix (Parts 1 & 2): This two part pilot episode is the one that introduced us to a young man - a detective who is believed to have been killed in a shoot out. What really happened to him though is that a wealthy man named Milton Knight has taken him in, given him plastic surgery, and changed his name to Michael Knight. His dying wish is to have one man make a difference as a crime fighter. That one man is Michael. He hooks Michael up with a prototype K.I.T.T. 2000 Trans Am. The K.I.T.T. 2000 is basically a super tank in sports car form. Michael obliges Milton's last wish and becomes... Knight Rider.

Deadly Maneuvers: A high ranking Army officer finds out about a criminal ring operating right under his very nose. Sadly, he pays the price for his curiosity and winds up dead. Michael Knight is called in to find out who the killers are and bring them to justice.

Good Day At White Rock: After the trying events of the first couple of episodes, Michael takes off with K.I.T.T. for a much needed stretch of rest and relaxation. It quickly turns dangerous though when he winds up involved in a war between two rival motorcycle gangs!

Slammin' Sammy's Stunt Show Spectacular: When the organizers of an auto stunt show take out a second mortgage from a man who they don't realize is a crook, Michael is called in to take care of things. It seems that this mortgage broker has a habit of making sure his clients end up having accidents so that he can take over their businesses.

Just My Bill: When a man runs for Senate, he's bound to come into conflict with people and as such, make a few enemies along the way. That's exactly what happens in this episode, as Michael is on the job acting as a bodyguard for the up and coming politician in question.

Not A Drop To Drink: Out in the boonies a problem has arisen - there's a turf war going on over the ownership of the local water supply. Devon gets word of this and figures Michael is a shoe-in to take care of this problem, and that's exactly what he does.

No Big Thing: Devon ends up in a small town jail for a petty crime! Things seem to be smoothing themselves out until the cops kill one of his fellow inmates in cold blood. Michael has to bust Devon out and set things right before it's too late.

Trust Doesn't Rust: K.A.R.R. is an evil version of K.I.T.T. and it's on the loose! The only ones who can stop K.A.R.R.'s reign of terror are Michael and K.I.T.T., because it'll take everything K.I.T.T. has to stop K.A.R.R. and then some. This episode is so over the top cornball that it's a milestone in the goodness of bad TV.

Inside Out: A retired army man now leads a gang of no good thieves. Michael gains their trust in order to bust them up and put an end to their ways when they try and hit the big time by heisting a shipment of gold.

The Final Verdict: A shy bookkeeper is the only one who can prove the innocence of a man accused of murder. Michael needs to keep him safe before the mobster's in on the scheme quiet him up for good.

A Plush Ride: Michael enrolls in a school for chauffeur-bodyguard types to stop a man from assassinating some very important leaders of a few third world nations.

Forget Me Not: A dastardly criminal organization is planning the assassination of a prominent South American politician. Michael can stop them if he can find out the details in time, but the only one who knows them is a little girl, and she has amnesia!

Hearts Of Stone: In Central America, the gunrunners know that life is cheap and the guns equal power and money. Michael has to infiltrate their ranks using his best sneaky-skills and stop their evil ways before they leak the new prototype guns into the wrong hands.

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death: There's a race on to benefit alternative fuel research and someone seems to be sabotaging the participants. Michael joins up in the race in order to be able to figure out who it is and how to stop him.

The Topaz Connection: When the publisher of a certain men's magazine is shot to death, Michael is called in on the scene. He heads out to the magazine's headquarters in Las Vegas and finds out that they were all set to publish an exclusive article that might indict some very important people in a rather ugly crime.

A Nice Indecent Little Town: Michael and K.I.T.T. are hot on the trail of a counterfeiter and the follow him to a quiet little town in the middle of nowhere. As the investigation thickens, not only does it appear that they're hiding this criminal, but that the CIA is involved in it as well.

Chariot Of Gold: A group comprised of an elite gang of brilliant archeologists suddenly become the victims of a mysterious killer. Michael takes the case to try and figure out who is responsible and why.

White Bird: Before Michael Knight became Michael Knight, he was engaged. And now it seems that his old fiancée is being framed for conspiracy! Will Michael be able to stay impartial and ensure that justice is served or will his old feelings come into play?

Knight Moves: A group of hijackers appear to be targeting the shipments made by an independent trucking company, but the reasoning behind their attack is not apparent until Michael starts looking into things.

Nobody Does It Better: A private investigator begins interfering with Michael's work when he tries to help him figure out who is stealing some top secret computer software.

Short Notice:Michael is accidentally responsible for killing a gang member and only one woman can clear his name. She's willing to help, but only of Michael will help her get back her kidnapped daughter first.

Season Two:

While the first season of Knight Rider made David Hasselhoff and his talking car a household name, it was here, in the second season, that the show would really start to pick up and get wacky. The reason people remember this show, and continue to enjoy it is because it started off fairly straight but quickly and voraciously seemed to embrace the fact that it was, at its core, a really silly concept. As such, the writers ran with it, and voila, we've got the second season - a truly wacky endeavor even by 'talking car TV show' standards.

The second season starts off with a bang as we're treated to one of the greatest two part episodes in television history, Goliath (parts one and two... duh). In this epic battle between good and evil we find out that Mr. Wilton Knight has an evil son named Garthe (also played by David Hasselhoff with some help from a bad goatee to signify just how evil he really is) and that he too has a fancied up vehicle in the form of a monster truck named, you guessed it, Goliath. Seeing Trans Am versus Monster Truck and Hasselhoff versus Hasselhoff makes for not only great entertainment, but a wonderful source of unintentional hilarity as only eighties television can provide. Whoever decided that Hasselhoff should have two roles on the show obviously saw the same sexy star quality in him that I do and in fact, had I been the casting director, I think I'd have Hasselhoff play every role. Why stop at just two?

At any rate, once Michael and K.I.T.T. have saved the world from bad facial hair and giant gas guzzling hazards to the environment, it's time to get back to fighting less familiar crime. As the season plays out we see Michael sent to prison (on purpose, not because he killed a baby or anything) to stop a bomb from going off, fight off a group of mercenaries who have a fancy helicopter that might be able to stop K.I.T.T. (but probably not), and save a blind woman who happens to be an important witness from serious trouble. That's not all though, as Hasselhoff teams up with Geena Davis in an episode where he has to foil the plans of a very clever cat burglar, K.I.T.T. gets even more customized to lure some car thieves into trying to steal him so that Michael can put an end to their evil thieving ways, and then in one episode they actually get stuck in a swamp while trying to save a woman from her evil man.

A few episodes later and Michael is celebrating Christmas by saving a gypsy from a gang of hoodlums, protecting a girl with a map that may or may not lead to buried treasure, and stopping a Mexican diamond smuggling ring from taking advantage of some poor high fashion runway models.

The adventures continue this way until everyone comes to their senses again and in another two part episode called Goliath Returns they decide to let Hasselhoff play the dual role once more and Garthe and his demonic monster truck return to put a stop to Michael's goodie-goodie two shoe antics once and for all. Once again, it's a high point in the series, as it always is when you just so happen to get more Hasselhoff for your viewing dollar than you originally anticipated.

A few more random episodes play out until, in a maniacal stroke of brilliance, the writers decide to let Hasselhoff rock the mic in an old school way in an episode entitled Let It Be Me in which Michael decides he should try to work on a musical career while he's busy looking into the mysterious death of a vocalist. Those familiar with David Hasselhoff's fantastic musical career will thrill to the sheer joy that they receive from this incredible episode.

All in all, it's a very solid collection of episodes. The first season was good, but the second season is better. More cars. More monster trucks. More gadgets. More hot chicks. More Hasselhoff. More fun!

The complete second season of Knight Rider is comprised of the following episodes:

Goliath (Parts 1 & 2) : Wilton Knight's son, Garthe (who looks uncannily like Michael) and his mother have built a giant truck dubbed Goliath out of the same sort of material that K.I.T.T. was made out of. It's going to take everything they've got for Michael and K.I.T.T. to stop Garth and Goliath!

Brother's Keeper: A man named Peter is sitting in jail and doesn't want to get out on parole because he fears for his life outside. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only one with insider information on a very real bomb threat. Michael goes undercover in the prison to try and win Peter's trust and help in solving the case.

Merchants Of Death: A gang of criminals get their hands on a state of the art military helicopter that they then decide to use for their selfish and greedy mercenary endeavors. Michael and K.I.T.T. are called in to stop them before they go any further.

Blind Spot: A blind woman is present when a horrible crime involving underground human trafficking goes down and Michael has to make sure that she's alive long enough to be of any use in bringing the human smugglers to justice!

Return To Cadiz: K.I.T.T. has undergone some modifications that should allow him to drive across water but just as Michael is about to test the new gear, K.I.T.T. finds a Scuba diver laying on the shore, barely alive. Michael investigates and is soon involved in a race to uncover lost Aztec gold!

K.I.T.T. The Cat: A cat burglar is running around town and stealing fancy stuff from fancy places and pissing off the rich folk who live in the area. A local policeman is obsessed with bringing the burglar in, but he might have some competition in the form of Michael Knight.

Custom K.I.T.T. A gang of car thieves are operating around the area and so Michael sets up K.I.T.T. as the kind of bait that he knows they won't be able to live without and puts the car on display at a high end car show where he knows they'll be watching.

Soul Survivor: A teenage computer hacker works his mojo on K.I.T.T. and succeeds in stealing him, Michael will have to get back the CPU and work with it in order to crack the case and get K.I.T.T. back to normal.

Ring Of Fire: A women marries a man whose family wields a lot of political influence in Louisiana and despite the fact that he beats her, they're none too pleased with the idea of her leaving him. Michael and K.I.T.T. get involved and try to help her, but as logic would dictate, the swampy terrain isn't exactly an ideal spot for a robotic car to be hanging out and saving the day.

Knightmares: Michael gets the crap knocked out of him while fighting crime at a dam. When he wakes up, he's suffering from a severe case of amnesia and believes that he's still a cop named Michael Long.

Silent Knight: It's Christmas time and what better way for a teenaged gypsy kid to celebrate than to steal an expensive watch from a gang of bank robbers? Of course, once the robbers figure this out, they want the kid dead - good thing Michael and K.I.T.T. are around to help.

A Knight In Shining Armor: A master criminal/murderer finds a treasure map but soon figures out that he now needs to track down the daughter of the man that he just murdered because she has the key he'll need. Of course, Michael's not really down with this idea at all.

Diamonds Aren't A Girl's Best Friend: A man purporting to be a talent agent and working out of Mexico is actually coercing beautiful young women into smuggling diamonds for him. Michael decides to head to Mexico with K.I.T.T. to put a stop to these shenanigans.

White-Line Warriors: A car club have been spending the weekends at a small coastal town where they get together, hang out and do car club stuff. A string of high profile robberies have started occurring ever since those car clubbers arrived on the scene so Michael heads into the town to find out if they're involved or not.

Race For Life: April's young niece is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant and if she doesn't get it soon she's probably going to die. The only one who can donate the marrow she needs is a gang member who is in hiding and it'll be up to Michael to find him in time to save the young girl's life.

Speed Demons: The foundation has sponsored a big motorcycle race and everything looks like it's going to go off as planned until an anonymous phone call clues the organizers to the fact that someone is possibly planning to murder someone at the race.

Goliath Returns (Parts 1 & 2): Garthe and Goliath are back and Garthe wants revenge against Michael for their last tussle. He kidnaps Devon and April and forces Michael and K.I.T.T. into a fatal showdown.

A Good Knight's Work: A criminal from Michael's past knows who he really is and he wants revenge. Meanwhile, a woman who has designed a talking bear toy asks Michael to prove whether or not her designs were stolen by a rival toymaker.

Mouth of the Snake (Parts 1 & 2): Michael teams up with an F.B.I. agent and the widow of a recently murdered man to find out what 'Boca Culebra' means, how it ties into a stolen arms shipment and what it has to do with the criminal that ties the three of them together.

Let It Be Me: Michael decides to go undercover as the lead singer of a rock group to investigate the suspicious death of the band's former singer and figure out how a strange video tape may or may not tie into what everyone is claiming was an accident but may have in fact been murder.

Big Iron: A bunch of construction equipment is stolen by a gang of thieves and Michael and K.I.T.T. are called in on the case. Unfortunately, the gang sneaks up on them and buries them inside a gravel pit!

Season Three:

Two years later and still going strong in the third season, Michael and his indestructible talking car K.I.T.T. continued to have many adventures, and the writers of the show continued to find new and unusual ways to have Michael and K.I.T.T. find problems to solve and crime to fight.

The third season of Knight Rider ran from September 30, 1984 through May 5, 1985, the complete list of episodes is as follows:

Knight Of The Drones (Parts 1 And 2): The only two-parter in the third season, finds Michael battling an evil scientist who is using an army of robots and 'drone cars' to pull off a heist at a large bank. Devon gets word of this plan and sends Michael and K.I.T.T. in to put a stop to it all before it's too late, but they're going to be vastly outnumbered and things don't look too good for our heroes. Look for former NFL star Jim Brown in a supporting role.

The Ice Bandits: An expert diamond thief successfully pulls off a daring heist and decides that the best place to hide out would be in Napa Valley - which just so happens to be where one Michael Knight is tooling around in his super car. When Michael gets wind of this, he chases down the punk and brings him to justice

Knights Of The Fast Lane: Someone smacks his fancy-schmancy hot rod into an unsuspecting dude who gets hurt. The mystery driver takes off to avoid an altercation with the police. Michael starts investigating and figures that the owner of the car might just be a local sports mogul.

Halloween Knight: This time out, the focus is more on Bonnie than on Michael but it makes for an interesting change. She's the unfortunate witness to a murder that takes place right near the new apartment that she's just moved into. After that happens, she starts seeing and hearing weird things in her new digs and she starts to think that she might be losing it. Will Michael and K.I.T.T. be able to help her become the grounded and sensible hottie that she once was or will she fall off the deep end once and for all?

K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R.: The highlight of the third season is this episode in which K.A.R.R. is found buried beneath the sand by a young couple. After he's been freed, K.A.R.R. seduces the guy into driving him around and getting him back up to speed so that he can launch another assault on Michael and K.I.T.T. by staging what they think is going to be an armored car robbery. Good thing Bonnie's going to install a new laser for K.I.T.T., or at least you'd think so until K.A.R.R. steals it. All of this goes down to the sounds of the Pointer Sisters in a couple of scenes.

The Rotten Apples: : A kindly woman lives a peaceful life outside of town where she operates a ranch for wayward young people and raises cattle. When a gang of nefarious cattle rustlers move in on her bovine breadwinners, it looks like it might be the end of her ranch - unless Michael Knight has something to say about it. And he does.

Knight In Disgrace: This episode is made super cool by the presence of one Mr. Ken Foree, star of Dawn Of The Dead and more recently, The Devil's Rejects. He plays a criminal who hires Michael to steal a special key from Devon after Michael is on the outs with him when it looks like he's responsible for some nasty drug smuggling action that's been going on in the area.

Dead Of Knight: A sexy dancing girl winds up the unlucky recipient of some nasty poison that was meant for none other than Mr. Michael Knight! Feeling bad that the poor chickie took a fall for him, Michael and K.I.T.T. wind up in a veritable race against time to get her fixed up before the poison sends her to an early grave.

Lost Knight: After a massive electrical surge that happens in the heat of a battle with some car thieves, K.I.T.T.'s memory chips are wiped clean and he flips out and takes off on Michael. Later that day a teenage boy finds the car wandering around and hops in, as he too is running from the same thieves as they know he saw them stashing their getaway car and could easily tell the cops. A young Jason Bateman guest stars.

Knight Of The Chameleon: A master criminal known only as the Chameleon has a talent for disguise and he uses his ability to blend in to break into a government compound and steal a secret jetpack. Michael and K.I.T.T. have to get the jetpack back and so Michael goes undercover as a soldier of fortune to infiltrate his ranks before the Chameleon sells it to someone who would only use it for evil!

Custom Made Killer: Michael and K.I.T.T. find themselves involved in a case where a sinister fashion mogul is using his own custom made car to knock off competing fashion designers and their employees.

Knight By A Nose: In the world of horse racing a man stages the death of his prize mare to cash in on the insurance money so that he can pay off some debts that he owes to some very bad people. He then intends to sell the horse illegally and make some serious coin on that transaction as well. Michael and K.I.T.T. are not down with this at all.

Junk Yard Dog: K.I.T.T. winds up getting dropped into a toxic waste pit and needs to be rebuilt. Once this is taken care of, however, it's obvious that something isn't quite right with K.I.T.T. - he's lost his self confidence and some of his reasoning ability!

Buy Out: Michael investigates an accident that turns out to be anything but! Rather, it looks like members of a company that make armor plating are involved in a little bit of industrial espionage of the most dangerous kind and that they'll do whatever they can to get their way even if it means killing innocent people.

Knightlines: A criminal mastermind wants to get in on a defense contractor's latest gig so he sets up a bunch of surveillance and listening gear in the office that the contractor is having constructed. When it looks like he's going to be exposed for the sneaky punk that he is, he decides that more hostile action may be required on his part... murder!

The Nineteenth Hole: Michael and K.I.T.T. are tooling around a small town when they find out that the sponsor of a local road rally competition has been receiving death threats from some mysterious evil doer. Michael enlists in the competition and he and K.I.T.T. pose as racers to try and sniff out the rat.

Knight And Knerd: Michael has to team up with a nerdy guy named Elliott in order to save the pretty daughter of a scientist from kidnappers who hope to force her old man into building them a high powered laser that they intend to use for evil!

Ten Wheel Trouble: It's not often that the world of secret criminal organizations and high tech crime fighters merge with the big rig trucking industry but thankfully this episode is an exception as Michael has to pose as a truck driver so that he can investigate an evil corporation who are trying to move in on some good old independent road warriors who are just trying to make an honest living. This episode features a supporting character named Shatner, who is unfortunately not William Shatner.

Knight in Retreat: When a retreat up in the mountains meant for various rich folk turns out to be nothing more than a front for a blackmail operation Michael goes undercover to save the day.

Knight Strike: A gang of thieves steal a cache of confiscated weapons from a police station. Some of the hot six shooters show up for sales at trade show and Michael and K.I.T.T. start sniffing around to see if they can follow the trail to the culprits responsible for the theft. They do, only to find out that these guys also have lasers! Watch out Michael and K.I.T.T.! Watch out!!!!

Circus Knight: In the season finale, Michael and K.I.T.T. have the unfortunate task of having to join up with a circus so that they can put their sleuthing skills to the test by attempting to figure out who is trying to run it out of business and why. David Hasselhoff proves he is a born performer in this episode and we get to see him do daredevil stunts with K.I.T.T. - it's pretty funny stuff.

Everything about this series is completely dated, from the Member's Only jackets to the soundtrack to the cars to the dialogue to the plots and the hairstyles but that only adds to the charm of the series. Some of the storytelling is pretty creative in spots and as implausible as each and every one of the episodes in this set is, they're still a lot of fun even if sometimes we're laughing at the series and maybe not so much laughing with it. It's all good entertainment, however, and it's never boring.

Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad. The third season featured two songs by Prince that had to be taken out due to copyright issues, and some of the sound effects are reported to be missing from certain scenes throughout most of the set (you'll notice that more often than not you do not hear K.I.T.T.'s engines). In Universal's defense, they might not have been able to come to an agreement with 'the Prince camp' to get the songs included on the set, and seeing as a lot of the other original eighties pop music is in here it's probably a fairly safe assumption (though still an assumption none the less) that they tried.

Season Four:

The forth season of Knight Rider ran from September 20, 1985 until April 4th,1986 when the show went off the air for good. Here's a look at the last season of the series:

Knight Of The Juggernaut (Parts 1 & 2): Things are looking grim when Wilton Knight's daughter, Jennifer, wants to shut things down just as Michael and K.I.T.T. need to head to Chicago to guard an isotope! K.I.T.T. winds up getting trashed by Nordstrom's rival car called the Juggernaut and Michael and Bonnie have no choice but to enlist a street gang to help them stop Nordstrom before he steals that aforementioned isotope.

K.I.T.T.nap: A long operating and very elusive criminal is in Michael's grasp when his henchmen kidnap a woman and send Michael off to rescue her so that they can capture him and get rid of him once and for all.

Sky Night: A bunch of hoods highjack a plane and threaten to kill all the passengers unless some compatriots of theirs, who are currently locked up, are released and granted their freedom. Michael freaks out when he finds out that Bonnie is on the plane and he sets out to rescue her.

Burial Ground: A bunch of archeologists who are busy uncovering an old burial ground are kidnapped by an industrialist who wants their discovery to remain a secret so that he can drill for oil on the property.

The Wrong Crowd: A gang of biker thugs mistake the F.L.A.G. truck for something else and highjack it. When they find out what it is, they get a computer hacker to break in and decide to use the technology for their own nefarious purposes.

Knight Sting: Bonnie takes K.I.T.T. undercover so that they can a diplomat with a yen for race cars who they suspect of trying to smuggle chemical weapons out of the country and into the wrong hands.

Many Happy Returns: It's Michael's birthday so he's taking the day off, or so he thinks. No sooner has he started to kick back and enjoy the day than he's interrupted by Devon who needs him to go find out what happened to a hovercraft that was stolen.

Knight Racer: When a professional racing team keeps having one accident after another, Michael investigates thinking that something sinister may be happening right under his nose but he soon winds up a target himself!

Knight Behind Bars: A rather brilliant prison warden forces her inmates to go out and commit crimes so that she can rake in the booty while providing them with flawless alibis! Michael investigates and soon winds up in hot water himself.

Knight Song: A real estate developer has plans to buy an entire city block in Chicago for a song and build a bunch of high rises and make a bundle - that is, until a nightclub opens on the block and refuses to sell to him. Foul play occurs and Michael and K.I.T.T. have to figure out who did what and why.

The Scent Of Roses: Michael is almost killed solving a case and falls into a deep depression afterwards. Unsure how to get Michael back to his old self, Devon brings Stevie in to hopefully cheer him up for good.

Killer K.I.T.T.: When K.I.T.T. gets hacked by an evil computer genius, he winds up targeting Michael and trying to kill him!

Out Of The Woods: A group of lumberjacks think that the lumberjacks operating next door are illegally cutting down their trees and undercutting their prices. No fair! Michael and K.I.T.T. arrive on the scene to find out the truth.

Deadly Knightshade: Michael suspects a criminal named Austin Templeton of murdering a foundation big wig and sets out to prove his suspicions are correct but as look would have it, Austin was performing on stage and couldn't have possibly been the killer...

Redemption Of A Champion: A big time boxer is in trouble when a sports reporter who has some dirt on him winds up dead, the victim of foul play. Michael arrives and does his thing and finds out that a boxing promoter and a man hell-bent on a comeback will resort to whatever they need to in order to get what they want.

Knight Of A Thousand Devils: The Feds raid a mafia hang out but the mobster they were after escapes and kills a friend of Michael's who was working for the F.B.I. en route. The hood is hoping to take part in an underground dune buggy race through the desert and make it out of the country but Michael and K.I.T.T. are on to him.

Hills Of Fire: In order to find out the real cause of a recent rash of dangerous forest fires in California, Michael and K.I.T.T. find that they have to rely on a surveillance robot named SID.

Knight Flight To Freedom: Deep in Central America an innocent American man is being held prisoner by a gang of militiamen bent on overthrowing the government. Michael and K.I.T.T. head south to save him and are thwarted by a surprise volcanic eruption!

Fight Knight: A film being shot in a movie studio finds itself on the receiving end of some bad luck being blamed on the ghost of a man who died there but Michael knows that there's no such things as ghosts so he and K.I.T.T. take it upon themselves to uncover the truth behind the string of accidents that just seems to keep growing.

Knight Of The Rising Sun: Michael and K.I.T.T. are called into action when a friend of Devon reports that his recently adopted son has been kidnapped by a strange group of Japanese men who want to restart a long dormant cult.

Voo Doo Knight: Michael gets all freaked out when he stops a robbery and sees one of the thieves kill himself right before his eyes. When Michael and K.I.T.T. investigate they find out that looks might be deceiving as a voodoo princess has been very active in the area and may have played a part in the apparent death.

So yeah, that's a whole lot of Knight Rider to digest but the series, as dated as it is, remains a lot of fun. The fourth season is the weakest of the batch but that's not really surprising as there was a fair bit of shark jumping going on towards the end of the second season and the beginning of the third but nostalgia is a cruel mistress and children of the eighties will no doubt be delighted to bask in hours of cathode goodness that this set provides. With roughly fifty-one hours of material here it's really more Knight Rider than anyone probably needs in their life but the series is what it is and Universal has made it available to those who crave it. Hasselhoff has gone on to bigger and not necessarily better things (a Jekyll & Hyde musical, Baywatch, and apparently some rather embarrassing home movies) but here he really is the very epitomy of eighties cool and for that we all need to pay our respects.

The DVD

Video:

They were shot fullframe, and we get them fullframe. All is right in the world of aspect ratios on this release. The picture quality though, is a mixed bag. The good - there is plenty of detail evident in the picture, and the colors look really nice. The picture is sharp and flesh tones look nice and natural. Sounds perfect, right? Well, there's a lot of edge enhancement on this release, and it does get a tad distracting in a couple of scenes. There are even a few spots where the image is almost wiggly because of it. This brings the overall viewing experience down a bit because of it. There's also a bit of print damage constantly rearing its head throughout the series, though none of it is overly severe.

Sound:

The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track sounds pretty good. The screeching of the tires, the monotone voice of KITT, the dialogue, they all come together nicely without any hiss or distortion problems at all. There could have been a bit more bass, but turning up the sub a wee bit takes care of that problem. Overall, these episodes all sound very solid. There is an English closed captioning option as well as optional Spanish and French subtitles.

Extras:

Season One:

On the first disc, over the pilot episode, is a full length commentary from star David Hasslehoff and series creator/writer Glen Larson. Despite the fact that the levels on this track seem a tad low, there's some fun information in here and listening to the two 'main guns' of the series reminisce about their work makes for a good time. Aside from that, there is an approximately six minute long documentary called Knight Moves that focuses on the stunt work done in the show, and how they managed to get the car to do what it could do. A second short documentary entitled Knight Sounds takes a look at the music that was created for the show, with most of the focus put on the series' instantly recognizable theme song. Knight Rider - Under The Hood runs just over fifteen minutes and is a nice, well rounded 'making of' retrospective that looks back on the series run through interviews with Hasslehoff, Larson, and a few others involved in making the show. A decent sized still gallery of black and white behind the scenes production stills and a gallery of blue prints for the car, the truck, and some of the other hardware seen on the series can also be found on the fourth disc. Finally, the K.I.T.T. Owner's Manual is a fun feature that allows viewers, through their remote control, to figure out through pop ups what all the buttons on the dashboard of the car were supposed to be used for.

As an added bonus, Universal has also included Knight Rider 2000 - The Movie. In this made for TV feature, Michael Knight is called out of retirement to fight crime in Seattle, where things are getting worse by the day. KITT 2000 has been dismantled and sold for scrap parts, but with some help from Devon, they're able to rebuild KITT into Michael's fancy 57 Chevy. He teams up with a sexy lady cop to clean up the streets of Seattle while the Knight Organization begins work on a new car.

Season Two:

Season Two is completely barebones! We get animated menus and chapter selection but that's all she wrote....

Season Three:

Season Three contains promo spots for Northern Exposure, Quantum Leap, House, Columbo, McLoud, McMillan And Wife, Las Vegas, Battlestar Galactica, Law & Order, Leave It To Beaver and Miami Vice as well as a 'bonus episode' from the fourth season, Knight Of The Rising Sun (which is included on the fourth season disc making this a rather silly extra to include).

Season Four:

Aside from animated menus and episode selection, the extras for the fourth season start off with The Great Eighties TV Flashback (29:00) which is a very clip heavy but enjoyable enough look back at the television that was popular during that decade, including but not specifically related to Knight Rider. Aside from that, look for K.I.T.T. Blue Prints which is an interactive slideshow that allows you to look designs for the car that made the series famous.

The Packaging:

While it might seem inconsequential to some, this time around it's absolutely worth mentioning the packaging for this set. Those who picked up the Knight Rider complete series releases as they were originally released will remember that the discs in that set were of the odd double-sided DVD-18 variety. This time around, everything is presented on standard single sided dual layer DVDs, which is definitely preferable.

Aside from that, check out the box that the slim cases come housed inside! It's a thick, shiny black box with a big red K.I.T.T. LED on the front. Press the button and it'll blink at you while the Knight Rider theme plays. You can even replace the batteries on it once the included trio of AAA cells bit the dust - too cool!

Final Thoughts:

Does anyone need this much Michael Knight? Yeah, probably. Knight Rider - The Complete Series is basically just a repackaging of the original four single season releases but the single sided discs and the absolutely radical packaging give this collection the edge over their predecessors. The series remains a lot of fun. It's goofy, but it's definitely entertaining and while the set is lighter than it could have been on extras, overall Universal has done a nice job and this collection comes recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.

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