Remember a few days ago when I talked about the planned update of the 80s kitsch classic Knight Rider, and I kind of scoffed at the notion that a talking car could be considered high-tech in this day and age? Yeah, apparently the producers either read this site or are a few steps ahead of me. Moviehole has leaked information about the two-hour pilot that indicates the show will be working to update itself and be better suited to the 21st-century, while still, of course, hanging on to a few icons from the past. Moviehole’s info contains SERIOUS SPOILERS, so if you don’t wanna know, don’t read!
OK. I’m not sure how Clint at Moviehole did it, but he has very detailed information about how the pilot will go down. Mike Knight (Justin Bruening) is the focus of the show, the son of Michael Knight (the main character in the original Knight Rider, not the Project Runway season three designer) who hasn’t seen his father in 20 years. We already knew this, in addition to the fact that David Hasselhoff would be reprising his role as Michael in some way. Turns out Hasselhoff doesn’t show up until about the last 10 minutes of the show, in kind of a “surprise appearance” way—he emerges out of the shadows in a silhouette, and then finally reveals himself to us. He shows up when Mike has come to visit his mother’s grave, and Moviehole doesn’t know how the scene ends, but knows that Hasselhoff won’t be a series regular.
The other big news in the Moviehole post is that William Daniels, the original voice of K.I.T.T. the talking car, will not be reprising his role. Clint sees this as a huge flaw in the new show, but I’m not so certain. If they’re expecting to be taken even a little bit seriously with this new show, they need to distance themselves from the kitsch of the old one. I’m sure William Daniels did an excellent job voicing the car, but I have no doubt that someone else could do just as good job. Hopefully they won’t be hiring someone to do an impression of the original actor, but will be bringing in an entirely new voice and feel for the show. I’d personally like to see a female actor try her hand, but who knows what they’re thinking.
There’s no telling if Moviehole will have more scoops like this in the future, but it’s clear from Clint’s anger over recasting K.I.T.T. that there are a lot of people emotionally invested in what’s going to come out of this new show.
