Admit it: there’s a serious lack of talking machines on television these days. The hatch on Lost does nothing but beep, none of Chuck’s awesome toys say a word, and I haven’t caught Star Wars on TV in years, which means no R2D2. Luckily David Hasselhoff understands our needs, and will be reprising his role as Michael Knight in a planned sequel to Knight Rider, the TV show that gave us talking cars before OnStar or GPS.
Soap opera star Justin Bruening will star as Mike Tracer, Michael Knight’s estranged son who is recruited by Sarah Kamen (Deanna Russo) to help track down her father, the founder of the industry that created Knight Rider, the titular talking car. Presumably during the course of their hunt Michael will show up and help them understand the mystical ways of the talking car—even though, uh, pretty much anyone’s car can talk to them these days. I guess that’s a detail to be worked out later.
The original Knight Rider is looked at now as the ultimate in 80s cheese, but throw in a good conspiracy plot and some hot actors and you could have a reasonable equivalent to pretty much everything else on television these days. Sci-fi is back, obviously, and while a talking car might not be the craziest thing to imagine these days, you can bet the updated version will have some seriously tricked-out features, like a Bond car on speed. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for ejector seats, though I guess there’s really no telling. One thing’s for certain: we may have missed talking cars on television, but we have suffered from a lack of Hasselhoff. Hard to know if he’s agreed to do this show as an ironic wink to his former self or he’s actually that hard-up, but either way, the TV audience benefits.
